FTC
News and Events on FTC
12 posts
Analytics Success Series: Federal Trade Commission
FTC’s Analytics Success: Making mission-related tasks easier for the user to find In the summer of 2015, members of the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Public Affairs (OPA) Web team worked with their FTC colleagues to analyze Digital Analytics Program (DAP) Google Analytics data (onsite search queries, landing pages, pageviews, etc.) for FTC.gov. We found
The User-Centered Redesign of IdentityTheft.gov
I first came across the redesigned IdentityTheft.gov on Reddit, of all places. Someone had posted a link to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) newly redesigned site and wrote: I hope this never happens to any of you as the entire thing can be really stressful. The identitytheft.gov website is a true breath of fresh air…You
Open Police Data Re-identification Risks
Last week I spoke at a White House event, “Opportunities & Challenges: Open Police Data and Ensuring the Safety and Security of Victims of Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Assault.” This event brought together representatives from government agencies, police departments, and advocacy groups to discuss the potential safety and privacy impact of open police data
New FTC Website for Identity Theft Victims Offers Personal Recovery Plans
Identity theft is a big problem and it takes time and effort to deal with the issues that it causes. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), has a new tool that makes it easier for identity theft victims to recover from identity theft by providing a personal recovery plan. No matter what the person’s specific identity
Income Scams Are Subject of New FTC Fotonovela
The FTC’s second Spanish-language fotonovela is about scams that promise you can make money selling high-end products or brand-name merchandise. If the pitch sounds familiar, that’s because the story is based on facts from a recent [Federal Trade Commission] FTC lawsuit against a
Challenge.gov Honors Federal Agencies, Staff for Raising the Bar on Public Sector Prize Competitions
The biggest advocates for the use of challenges in the public sector gathered at the General Services Administration (GSA) headquarters, October 8, to acknowledge the remarkable rise of a community that has grown steadily in number and influence over the past five years. More than 300 federal employees representing agencies spanning government attended in person
Trends on Tuesday: Half of Online Americans Don’t Know What a Privacy Policy Is
Federal agencies are required by law (see the list of applicable ones here) to use privacy policies on their digital properties that explain how they use the data they collect about users and visitors. This ensures that these users and visitors know what the government is doing with their data. The problem, according to Pew
Crowdsourcing Month: An Overview
This month we’ll be highlighting articles about crowdsourcing. These are the programs that use a variety of online mechanisms to get ideas, services, solutions, and products by asking a large, diverse crowd to contribute their expertise, talents, and skills. Among the mechanisms are hackathons, data jams, code-a-thons, prize competitions, workplace surveys, open ideation, micro-tasks or
What’s Happening with the Internet of Things?
No Mobile Gov Month on DigitalGov would be complete without an update on the Internet of Things. Regardless if you’re talking wearables, smart homes, sensors or any other connected device, your current mobile approaches will be impacted—as will your social media, user experience and data strategies. When we last visited the topic in April, discussion
FTC Awards Five Winners from #DEFCON22 Robocall Honeypot Challenge
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had such great success with their first robocall challenge competition that the agency decided to take a different angle this year—targeting the skilled hackers at DEF CON 22, the annual defense conference in Las Vegas in early August. Five winners earned cash prizes and bragging rights for their creative technical
Defining Ideation in Challenge Competitions
There is some confusion about how “ideation” fits into challenge and prize competitions. Often, we hear from agencies that they would like to ask the public for ideas, to survey them on a specific question, or to request proposals in response to a
Thousands of Calls Blocked, Thanks to Contest Winner
Technology to block robocalls is a huge win for consumers and for challenge competitions this year. The FTC awarded a prize to Aaron Foss, creator of Nomorobo, in April. The technology went to market September 30, and the tool has already blocked more
