Consumer Protection

As artificial intelligence dominates corporate messaging, exaggerated claims — known as "AI washing" — may be masking layoffs, distorting valuations, and weakening trust across the tech industry.

Mistrust in how online retailers handle their customers' personal information is at an all-time high, costing merchants lost revenue and follow-up orders. Twenty-six percent of consumers have abandoned a brand in the past 12 months due to privacy concerns. Establishing a higher trust level is no lon...

Sometimes when you tug on the thread of a small customer service failure, you unravel a big skein of much knottier problems. That happened when Shield Healthcare didn't send "Great Aunt Nelly" her shipment of medical supplies on time. There are many people like Nelly in the U.S. -- elderly and disab...

Flexa has launched a new digital payment network that uses cryptocurrencies to cut processing costs, eliminate fraud and preserve users' privacy. The network uses Flexa's Spedn app to process consumer transactions at cooperating merchants. The new payment platform makes it possible to spend Bitcoin,...

Long an obsession of science fiction writers, "artificial intelligence" in the modern era of fast-paced technological innovation is a term that is as ubiquitous as it is nebulous. For the payments technology industry, however, the term describes advanced analytical technology that has an outsized po...

Merchants have a vested interest in streamlining the customer experience and minimizing friction wherever possible in the purchasing process. There are downsides to this premise, though.

Amazon has announced Project Zero, a program that empowers vendors to help drive counterfeits down. The anti-counterfeit campaign will employ Amazon's advanced technology, machine learning and innovation. Amazon will partner with Project Zero's participating vendors to protect their intellectual pro...

Americans received 26.3 billion robocalls on their mobile phones in 2018, according to Hiya. That was 46 percent more than in 2017.

The Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the Firefox web browser, is expanding a campaign begun last year to help consumers buy safe, secure connected toys and mobile gadgets this holiday season. Mozilla's 2018 edition Privacy Not Included buyers' guide offers an assessment of the p...

Google has announced new steps to combat the placement of fraudulent tech support ads on its platform. The company will roll out a verification program in the next few months to ensure that only legitimate third-party tech support providers can place Google ads. There are many legitimate tech suppor...

A flaw in certain electronic hotel door locks could allow hackers to access guest rooms and other secure locations at millions of properties around the world, F-Secure researchers have discovered.

DoNotPay, an AI-based chatbot app created to help fight parking tickets in the UK, now addresses roughly 1,000 consumer concerns and is available throughout the United States as well as across the pond. The app's creator, Stanford student Joshua Browder, announced the expansion last week. Powered by...

When the U.S. Department of Labor issued its fiduciary rule last year, it set financial advisers, insurers and agents into a mad scramble to meet an April 10, 2017, implementation deadline. The rule elevates all financial professionals who work with retirement plans or provide retirement planning ad...

The United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has come under increasing fire from Republican lawmakers who now have the Trump administration to back their efforts. Long-time critic Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R.-Texas, who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, comp...