U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles for Southern Florida in Miami ordered Simple Health Plans and its CEO Steven Dorfman to pay $195 million for violating the FTC's telemarketing sales rule, said Gayles' signed Feb. 7 order (docket 0:18-cv-62593), as publicized in an FTC news release Friday. The scheme included selling "sham health care plans that did not deliver the coverage or benefits they promised and effectively left consumers uninsured and exposed to limitless medical expenses," the agency said. Also fined and banned from engaging in future telemarketing schemes were Health Benefits One, Health Center Management, Innovative Customer Care, Simple Insurance Leads and Senior Benefits One.
U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez for Western Texas in San Antonio directed his clerk to administratively close the FTC’s case against the personal finance mobile app, FloatMe, and its co-founders Joshua Sanchez and Ryan Cleary, said his signed order Friday (docket 5:24-cv-00001). Though administratively closed, the case “will still exist on the docket,” and may be reopened on request or on the court’s own motion, said the order. The parties may continue to file motions and documents in the case, it said. FloatMe, Sanchez and Cleary agreed Jan. 22 to pay the FTC $3 million to settle allegations that they promise, but then fail to deliver, short-term cash advances if consumers enroll in a $1.99 monthly membership plan (see 2401240055).
Comcast didn’t heed warnings from Citrix and “numerous other industry experts who were sounding the alarm” about the cloud computing company’s Citrix Bleed vulnerability in two of its network appliances that led to an October data breach, alleged a class action Thursday (docket 2:24-cv-00599) against the two companies in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The breach affected some 36 million Comcast Xfinity customers.
Nothing in the FTC’s letter to the 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court Wednesday about Microsoft job cuts in its video game operations undermines “the primary reason” for the 9th Circuit to affirm the district court’s denial of the FTC’s injunction to block Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard buy, said Microsoft’s rebuttal letter Thursday (docket 23-15992). The FTC has failed to raise “a serious question as to whether Microsoft is likely to foreclose competition in the alleged console, subscription or cloud markets,” it said. The FTC’s letter told the 9th Circuit that Microsoft’s plan to cut 1,900 video game jobs “contradicts” its “representations” in the FTC’s appeal to temporarily pause Microsoft’s Activision buy pending the commission’s evaluation of the acquisition’s antitrust merits. The FTC told the 9th Circuit that Microsoft’s statements that the layoffs were part of an execution plan that would reduce areas of overlap between Microsoft and Activision is “inconsistent” with Microsoft’s suggestion to the 9th Circuit that the two companies “will operate independently post-merger.” But the FTC’s letter “provides no basis for undercutting” the district court’s denial of the injunction, said Microsoft’s rebuttal. “Moreover, the FTC’s factual assertions are incomplete and misleading,” it said. Consistent with broader trends in the gaming industry, Activision “was already planning on eliminating a significant number of jobs while still operating as an independent company,” said Microsoft. The recent announcement of 1,900 job cuts thus can’t be “attributed fully” to the combination, it said. Microsoft “continues fully to stand behind its representations” to the 9th Circuit, it said. “To be clear, while some overlap was identified and some jobs were eliminated,” Microsoft has structured and is operating the post-merger company “in a way that will readily enable it to divest any or all of the Activision businesses as robust market participants in the unlikely event that a divestiture ultimately is ordered,” it said. “This is precisely what Microsoft represented previously.”
U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill for the District of Idaho in Coeur d’Alene denied Kochava’s motion to dismiss the FTC’s first amended complaint in a privacy lawsuit over geolocation data, said his signed order Saturday (docket 2:22-cv-00377).
Fidelity National Financial (FNF) and its LoanCare subsidiary failed to comply with industry standards to protect its customers’ “highly valuable, protected, personally identifiable information” (PII) in a November data breach that the company referred to as a “catastrophe,” alleged a class action Thursday (docket 3:24-cv-00115) in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida in Jacksonville.
Meta’s claim that the removal protections of FTC commissioners are unconstitutional is “foreclosed” by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S., according to the FTC’s response Thursday (docket 1:23-cv-03562) in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to Meta’s Jan. 25 sur-reply in opposition to the commission’s motion to dismiss.
Alaska Power & Telephone hires Kymeta’s William Marks, also former Maritime Telecommunications Network and DirecTV, as president-CEO, effective immediately, replacing Michael Garrett, retiring, but remaining senior adviser to Marks through March 31 ... Metro One adds Cerian Technology Ventures President-CEO Brian Sagi to its board, and appoints Treasurer-interim Chief Financial Officer James Brodie, current board member, as secretary ... Infinite Reality taps former Columbia Pictures and Columbia TriStar Chairman Mark Canton as chief creative consultant and chairman of its entertainment advisory board ... Netgear taps Charles Prober, former Life360 president and ex-GoPro chief operating officer, as CEO-chairman, replacing retiring Patrick Lo, remaining a strategic adviser through July ... Cybersecurity company Bitsight forms cyber risk advisory board, naming as founding members: former Rep. James Langevin, D-R.I.; Roland Cloutier, former ByteDance and TikTok chief security officer; and Homaira Akbari, CEO of AKnowledge Partners, also former Microsoft, Thales and Liberty Media.
U.S. District Judge Lindsay Jenkins for Northern Illinois in Chicago ordered Day Pacer and EduTrek and their owners, Raymond Fitzgerald and Ian Fitzgerald, plus the estate of deceased defendant David Cumming, to pay $28.7 million in civil penalties for making millions of illegal, unsolicited calls to consumers whose numbers were listed on the national do not call registry, said the judge’s Jan. 23 signed order (docket 1:19-cv-01984). The judge also permanently banned the defendants from participating in telemarketing or helping others engaged in telemarketing to consumers, it said. Defendant Cumming died after the parties had fully briefed summary judgment and his estate has been substituted as a defendant, said the order. The FTC alleged that the defendants bought consumers’ contact information mainly from websites claiming to help people find jobs, and instead illegally called those consumers to market unsolicited vocational or post-secondary education services, said the commission Wednesday. The court found that the defendants assisted other telemarketing companies by paying them to make about 40 million calls to consumers on the DNC registry, it said. The court also found that the individual defendants knowingly violated the commission’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, citing evidence that they had ignored repeated complaints from consumers and warnings from business partners.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss for the District of Columbia rescheduled for March 1 at 1 p.m. the hearing vacated Monday on the FTC’s motion to dismiss Meta’s complaint for a declaration that the agency is unconstitutional, said the judge’s text-only minute order Saturday (docket 1:23-cv-03562). The judge reset the hearing in light of the FTC’s order extending to March 15 Meta’s deadline to respond in the commission’s administrative proceeding, said the order. Meta’s Nov. 29 complaint seeks to block the FTC from modifying its 2020 privacy consent order with new restrictions on Meta’s business activities (see 2311300039). The new March 15 deadline is for Meta to respond to the FTC’s order to show cause why the commission shouldn’t modify the 2020 consent order and enter the new restrictions. The show cause order said the FTC has reason to believe Meta failed to establish and implement an effective privacy program as the 2020 consent order had mandated.