FTC's ability to thwart online deception extremely limited: report - Technolog on msnbc.com
Despite the FTC employing nearly 1,200 employees, the relatively new department established to cover the mobile sector of commerce comprises just six people — three of whom are from the legal department. Furthermore, the people who ostensibly oversee commerce involving the hundreds of millions of phones in this country — along with apps, services and carriers — are restricted in both the hardware and software they use.
BlackBerry phones are used at the FTC and other government agenciesfor security reasons, but iPhone or Android devices and the apps they run are kept in a basement lab, which very likely makes real use of them impossible. Several employees interviewed admitted to using personal devices to do their work. The FTC itself doesn't seem to see the necessity of providing its employees with the means to do their job:
Despite the FTC employing nearly 1,200 employees, the relatively new department established to cover the mobile sector of commerce comprises just six people — three of whom are from the legal department. Furthermore, the people who ostensibly oversee commerce involving the hundreds of millions of phones in this country — along with apps, services and carriers — are restricted in both the hardware and software they use.
BlackBerry phones are used at the FTC and other government agenciesfor security reasons, but iPhone or Android devices and the apps they run are kept in a basement lab, which very likely makes real use of them impossible. Several employees interviewed admitted to using personal devices to do their work. The FTC itself doesn't seem to see the necessity of providing its employees with the means to do their job:
The interview with [Mobile Technology Unit director Patricia] Poss was conducted in an office on the third floor of the FTC’s headquarters, with an FTC spokeswoman on hand. When Poss was asked whether it wouldn’t make sense for the director of the Mobile Technology Unit to have a government-issued iPhone or Android, the spokeswoman, Claudia Farrell, interceded.
“He’s trying to get you to bitch, Patti. Don’t do it.”
“He’s trying to get you to bitch, Patti. Don’t do it.”
