Razer Zephyr

Razer hit with $1.1M FTC fine over glowing ‘N95’ mask COVID claims

by with No Comment Tech

Razer Zephyr

Image Credits: Razer

The Federal Trade Commission hit Razer with a $1.1 million fine Tuesday. The order claims that the gaming accessory maker misled consumers by claiming that its flashy Zephyr mask was certified as N95-grade.

“These businesses falsely claimed, in the midst of a global pandemic, that their face mask was the equivalent of an N95 certified respirator,” FTC Bureau of Consumer Projection Director Samuel Levine noted in a statement. “The FTC will continue to hold accountable businesses that use false and unsubstantiated claims to target consumers who are making decisions about their health and safety.”

Razer has predictably pushed back against the commission’s claims.

“We disagree with the FTC’s allegations and did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the settlement,” a representative from the company said in a statement to TechCrunch. “It was never our intention to mislead anyone, and we chose to settle this matter to avoid the distraction and disruption of litigation and continue our focus on creating great products for gamers. Razer cares deeply about our community and is always looking to deliver technology in new and relevant ways.”

The company went on to suggest that the complaint was cherrypicked, adding that it went out of its way to refund customers and end sales of the Zephyr.

“The Razer Zephyr was conceived to offer a different and innovative face covering option for the community,” it notes. “The FTC’s claims against Razer concerned limited portions of some of the statements relating to the Zephyr. More than two years ago, Razer proactively notified customers that the Zephyr was not a N95 mask, stopped sales, and refunded customers.”

The FTC is also officially barring sales of the mask and “making COVID-related health misrepresentations or unsubstantiated health claims about protective health equipment.” It goes a step further, “prohibit[ing] the defendants from representing the health benefits, performance, efficacy, safety, or side effects of protective goods and services (as defined in the proposed order), unless they have competent and reliable scientific evidence to support the claims made.”

The filing suggests that Razer intentionally deceived consumers into believing that the $100 mask would protect against COVID. Certainly the virus was very much top of mind when the product first dropped in October 2021.

The order is currently awaiting approval and signature from a District Court judge.

Exterior view of the street sign in front of the US Federal Trade Commission headquarters.

FTC seeks to modify rule to combat deepfakes

by with No Comment Tech

Exterior view of the street sign in front of the US Federal Trade Commission headquarters.

Image Credits: P. Wei (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Spurred by the growing threat of deepfakes, the FTC is seeking to modify an existing rule that bans the impersonation of businesses or government agencies to cover all consumers.

The revised rule — depending on the final language, and the public comments that the FTC receives — might also make it unlawful for a GenAI platform to provide goods or services that they know or have reason to know are being used to harm consumers through impersonation.

“Fraudsters are using AI tools to impersonate individuals with eerie precision and at a much wider scale,” FTC chair Lina Khan said in a press release. “With voice cloning and other AI-driven scams on the rise, protecting Americans from impersonator fraud is more critical than ever. Our proposed expansions to the final impersonation rule would do just that, strengthening the FTC’s toolkit to address AI-enabled scams impersonating individuals.”

It’s not just folks like Taylor Swift who have to worry about deepfakes. Online romance scams involving deepfakes are on the rise. And scammers are impersonating employees to extract cash from corporations.

In a recent poll from YouGov, 85% of Americans said they were very concerned or somewhat concerned about the spread of misleading video and audio deepfakes. A separate survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that nearly 60% of adults think AI tools will increase the spread of false and misleading information during the 2024 U.S. election cycle.

Last week, my colleague Devin Coldewey covered the FCC’s move to make AI-voiced robocalls illegal by reinterpreting an existing rule that prohibits artificial and pre-recorded message spam. Timely in light of a phone campaign that employed a deepfaked President Biden to deter New Hampshire citizens from voting, the rule change — and the FTC’s step today — are the current extent of the federal government’s fight against deepfakes and deepfaking technology.

No federal law squarely bans deepfakes. High-profile victims like celebrities can theoretically turn to more traditional existing legal remedies to fight back, including copyright law, likeness rights and torts (e.g. invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress). But these patchwork laws can be time-consuming — and laborious — to litigate.

In the absence of congressional action, 10 states around the country have enacted statutes criminalizing deepfakes — albeit mostly non-consensual porn. No doubt, we’ll see those laws amended to encompass a wider array of deepfakes — and more state-level laws passed — as deepfake-generating tools grow increasingly sophisticated. (Case in point, Minnesota’s law already targets deepfakes used in political campaigning.)

Razer Zephyr

Razer hit with $1.1M FTC fine over glowing ‘N95’ mask COVID claims

by with No Comment Tech

Razer Zephyr

Image Credits: Razer

The Federal Trade Commission hit Razer with a $1.1 million fine Tuesday. The order claims that the gaming accessory maker misled consumers by claiming that its flashy Zephyr mask was certified as N95-grade.

“These businesses falsely claimed, in the midst of a global pandemic, that their face mask was the equivalent of an N95 certified respirator,” FTC Bureau of Consumer Projection Director Samuel Levine noted in a statement. “The FTC will continue to hold accountable businesses that use false and unsubstantiated claims to target consumers who are making decisions about their health and safety.”

Razer has predictably pushed back against the commission’s claims.

“We disagree with the FTC’s allegations and did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the settlement,” a representative from the company said in a statement to TechCrunch. “It was never our intention to mislead anyone, and we chose to settle this matter to avoid the distraction and disruption of litigation and continue our focus on creating great products for gamers. Razer cares deeply about our community and is always looking to deliver technology in new and relevant ways.”

The company went on to suggest that the complaint was cherrypicked, adding that it went out of its way to refund customers and end sales of the Zephyr.

“The Razer Zephyr was conceived to offer a different and innovative face covering option for the community,” it notes. “The FTC’s claims against Razer concerned limited portions of some of the statements relating to the Zephyr. More than two years ago, Razer proactively notified customers that the Zephyr was not a N95 mask, stopped sales, and refunded customers.”

The FTC is also officially barring sales of the mask and “making COVID-related health misrepresentations or unsubstantiated health claims about protective health equipment.” It goes a step further, “prohibit[ing] the defendants from representing the health benefits, performance, efficacy, safety, or side effects of protective goods and services (as defined in the proposed order), unless they have competent and reliable scientific evidence to support the claims made.”

The filing suggests that Razer intentionally deceived consumers into believing that the $100 mask would protect against COVID. Certainly the virus was very much top of mind when the product first dropped in October 2021.

The order is currently awaiting approval and signature from a District Court judge.