Regulation and Compliance

Two social media influencers, Trevor Martin, 'TmarTn' and Thomas Cassell of The Syndicate Project, settled with the Federal Trade Commission on charges that they failed to disclose their ownership in CSGO Lotto when they endorsed the online gaming company. According to the FTC, Martin and Cassell paid other social media influencers thousands of dollars to promote CSGO Lotto on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Twitch, but failed to disclose this in their social media posts. As part of the settlement, the FTC is requiring the pair to 'clearly and conspicuously disclose any material connections with an endorser or between an endorser and any promoted product or service.'

Looking back at 2019, we covered hundreds of subscription launches, mergers, subscription closures, financial triumphs and disasters, and much more. In this week's Five on Friday, we're going to take a look at the top five subscription stories of the year. Disney+ lands the mouse some serious cheddar, Apple tries to strike gold with subscriptions…but doesn't find it, MoviePass finally fizzles out, broke and embarrassed, the government goes after subscription scams, and the GateHouse/Gannett merger creates a newspaper powerhouse that will be hard to compete with in the next decade.

Last week a federal grand jury indicted eight people in an illegal TV and movie streaming service scheme, following an FBI investigation. The indictment charged eight people who allegedly conspired to violate federal copyright law through the creation of two of the largest unauthorized streaming services in the U.S. - Jetflicks and iStreamItAll. As a result of this scheme, TV and movie copyright owners have lost millions of dollars from streamed and illegally downloaded content, said the Department of Justice in an August 27 news release.

This was a big week for AT&T (NYSE: T) Time Warner. They got the OK from a federal judge to proceed with their massive merger, a $85.4 billion deal, says The New York Times. The Justice Department had tried to block the merger, but Judge Richard J. Leon of U.S. District Court in Washington said the Justice Department had not proven its case that the merger would create unfair competitive advantages for the combined company.

Epic Games, creator of Fortnite, is suing Apple for anti-competitive and monopolistic behavior and for banning Fortnite from the App Store.

In this week's Five on Friday, we feature influential subscription brands, acquisition news, and a special pizza-and-a-movie promotion.

Happy St. Patricks Day and thanks for checking out Five on Friday, our curated list of subscription-related must reads. In this weeks edition of Five on Friday, youll find 7 SaaS KPIs to track in 2017, tips for creating effective Facebook Ads, cross-border taxes, emotional triggers and reducing churn.

In February 2016, Subscription Insider wrote a best practice report on Canadas Anti-Spam legislation (CASL) designed to protect Canadians from electronic spam and to work toward a safer, more secure online marketplace. The majority of that legislation went into effect on July 1, 2014, section 8 of the CASL Act went into effect on January 15, 2017, and the remaining portion - sections 47 to 51 and 55 of the Act - come into force on July 1, 2017. Learn more about the new regulations at Subscription Insider.

Red or white, rose or sparkling, wine is Americas new trendy drink. It is being embraced by younger drinkers, who are also those most likely to want experiment with new tastes, making them ideal potential customers for subscription wine clubs. But outdated blue laws make it hard for retailers to ship wine across state lines. Heres how online wine merchants are satisfying the demand while working through (and around) the regulatory bottlenecks.

Halloween is just around the corner and we have tricks and treats in this weeks Five on Friday: the FBI investigates ad fraud and questionable media buying practices in the U.S., Apple puts a stop to tricksters using deceitful practices to entice users into subscribing, Discord opens a beta games store and revamps its Nitro games subscription, DocuSign agrees to acquire SpringCM, and Shopify shares three support channels your subscription business needs now.