A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommends that the U.S. government work with stakeholders to create guidelines to protect consumer privacy and prevent companies from sharing their location information without the consumers’ permission. The GAO’s report found that consumers are mostly oblivious about mobile app developers and wireless carriers sharing or selling their […]

Monetate, a company offering conversion and optimization solutions for brands, generated a helpful infographic recapping last year’s e-commerce holiday season. Among the bits of information shared are: A total of $816 million was spent online in the U.S. on Black Friday last year, up 26 percent from the $648 million spent in 2010 $1.25 billion […]

By Jonathan L. Pompan, of counsel, Venable LLP

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) will host a one-day summit, “Robocalls All the Rage,” on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012, “to develop solutions to the rapid rise in illegal robocalls.” The summit comes on the heels of reports that complaints about unwanted calls are on the rise, and a request by some U.S. senators to investigate lead generators.

Groupon’s Breadcrumb point-of-sale application for restaurants acts as a replacement for cash registers and gives users the ability to do other things. Combine this shift with its acquisition of Savored and it’s apparent that Groupon is placing itself in the ring with OpenTable. But this could be a mistake, since restaurants are already cozy with […]

Fab, a fast-growing flash-sales site, is expected to get 8 million users in a few days, is seeing a third of its daily visits and sales coming from mobile apps on Android and iOS devices. That figure is expected to hit 50 percent during the holiday season and even higher early in 2013. In response […]

PunchTab touts itself as “the world’s first instant loyalty platform.” Flush with $5.25 million in venture funding, the company is expanding into the mobile realm with a giveaways iPhone app called “PunchTab Giveaways.” The app will enable consumers to take part in publishers’ contests on their mobile phones. To give you a better idea of […]

Last week we took a look at why marketers should blog to generate leads, so it makes sense to follow that up with a discussion of what marketers need to keep in mind as they build out their blogs. After all, you wouldn’t convince a friend to embark on a big adventure without telling them […]

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W. Va., opened up an investigation of nine data brokers’ practices on Wednesday. The Commerce Committee sent letters to nine information brokers: Acxiom, Experian, Equifax, Transunion, Epsilon, Reed Elsevier (Lexis-Nexis), Datalogix, Rapleaf and Spokeo. The investigation aims to understand their practices and the impact they have on consumers. “Because consumers […]

According to a study from Outbrain and Econsultancy, 38 percent of in-house brand marketers have a defined content marketing strategy, while 55 percent don’t but are planning one. On the agency/consultant side, 13 percent say they do, while 58 percent say they don’t but are planning one, and 29 percent say they don’t and are […]

Some users of Facebook’s Android mobile app are able to purchase gifts for friends from birthday or celebration alerts that will pop up atop their news feeds. This is a mobile promotion of Facebook Gifts for users in the Gifts Beta, and it will make its way to iOS in the coming weeks. Birthday and […]