LeapLab And Other Defendants Settled With FTC

Recently, a reader wrote via e-mail with feedback about this December 2014 blog post which discussed a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against a data broker, LeapLab, and other defendants. The suit alleged that the defendants sold consumers' sensitive personal information to fraudsters.

The reader was unhappy because he was unable to submit a comment on that blog post. The policy of this blog is to close comments on all blog posts after a year. The reader seemed to interpret that policy as a slight against one of the defendants. No. The closing of comments after a year is equal, consistent treatment.

The reader was also unhappy with comments posted by other readers to that 2014 blog post. Like other blogs, readers freely share their opinions and feedback in the comments section. Like other blogs, I am not responsible for readers' comments. Nor do I censor comments for content. I remind everyone to read the Terms of Service.

The reader's e-mail feedback claimed the blog post was incomplete and one sided. Today's blog post reports the rest of the story.

LeapLab and the other defendants settled the lawsuit with the FTC in February, 2016. The February 18, 2016 FTC announcement stated:

"A group of defendants have settled Federal Trade Commission charges that they knowingly provided scammers with hundreds of thousands of consumers’ sensitive personal information – including Social Security and bank account numbers. The proposed federal court orders prohibit John Ayers, LeapLab and Leads Company from selling or transferring sensitive personal information about consumers to third parties. The defendants will also be prohibited from misleading consumers about the terms of a loan offer or the likelihood of getting a loan. In addition, the settlements require the defendants to destroy any consumer data in their possession within 30 days.

The orders include a $5.7 million monetary judgment, which is suspended based on the defendants sworn inability to pay. In addition to the settlement orders, the court entered an unsuspended $4.1 million default judgment with similar prohibitions against SiteSearch, the remaining defendant in the case."

You can follow the above links to the settlement agreements between each defendant and the FTC, which were approved by the court. Links are also available on the FTC-Leaplab proceedings page.

As a solo blogger with limited resources, I do my best to get it right. There's plenty of privacy news to cover, and I should have reported the above settlement agreements sooner. Hopefully, today's blog post corrects that oversight. I sincerely thank all readers for their feedback and comments.