Lifelock Pays the FTC $11 Million to Settle

The Federal Trade Commission and 35 state attorneys general filed a complaint against the company that “charged that the company used false claims to promote its identity theft protection services,” according to a March 9th FTC press release. LifeLock will be responsible for paying the FTC $11 million dollars as well as an additional $1 million to the 35 state attorneys general.

To clarify a couple of points that aren’t currently being covered by the media:

1. LifeLock did make misleading claims about how completely their product protected individuals, but to their credit, they toned those claims down considerably starting about a year ago. In essence then, the ruling pertains to LifeLock of old, not the current company, marketing materials or product offering.
2. At about the same time as they changed advertising, LifeLock began adding features to its product that bolstered the quality of its monitoring services.

If LifeLock continues to support and bolster the “engine” underneath its product (namely, the sophisticated identity monitoring services that it has already started adding), it will serve as a very worthwhile product in the identity monitoring space.

Here are a few of the charges in the FTC’s complaint that were in the press release:

Posted in Identity Theft by Identity Theft Expert John Sileo.

Tags: FTC, identity theft expert, LifeLock, Settlement