With the budget impasse (temporarily) resolved, the Federal Trade Commission is open again.  While we certainly didn't expect any major consumer protection announcements from the FTC today, the FTC did sent out two interesting alerts.

In the FTC blog, Lesley Fair wrote about nine developments that could impact businesses in 2019.  What are the issues that she's telling marketers to pay attention to?  They were health claims, "made in USA" claims, automobile marketing, fintech issues, social media marketing and customer reviews, data security and privacy, ROSCA, practices targeting small businesses and entrepreneurs, and financial injury. 

The FTC also issued a consumer alert entitled, "What'd we miss"? In it, the FTC invited consumers to report fraud to the FTC's Consumer Sentinel.  The FTC also warned consumers about the issues that it has seen in the news, including family emergency scams, phishing scams, tech support scams, social security scams, and scams demanding payment through the use of gift cards.  The FTC also reported that they get a lot of robocalls, but that blockers on their cell phones made a difference.  

Now that the FTC is back, you can expect lots of news in the coming weeks.