Christopher G. Cwalina is a Partner in our
Washington D.C. office and Steven B. Roosa a
Partner in our
New Tork office
It's the opinion here that the HTC settlement with the FTC
that was announced Friday is the most significant FTC case in the
past 5 years. There are multiple reasons for this, including
what appear to be substantial new requirements for hardware and
software developers. The HTC Complaint essentially announces
a lower bar for noncompliance (basically a negligence standard on
issues of security), formally enshrines the role of independent
researchers with no affiliation with the FTC (something we've
been talking about for some time now), and delves deeply into
complex security areas where it has no special expertise--and which
seems to fall significantly outside the FTC's delegated,
consumer-centric jurisdiction from Congress—and finds
violations where there has been no evidence of actual harm,
compromise or loss. The FTC is in new territory, and
