Jonathan Martinez resolved FTC claims about fake reviews on the rental platform Roomster (see 2208300051), his attorney said in a statement Wednesday. He “settled this matter with the FTC and six state attorneys general without admitting any wrongdoing,” Crowell & Moring attorney Kristin Madigan said. “This matter concerns conduct that occurred in the past and is now fully resolved for Mr. Martinez.”

A Washington, D.C.-based tech executive billionaire made false claims about his residency to avoid paying more than $25 million in taxes to the District of Columbia, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine (D) alleged in a lawsuit his office announced Wednesday. Racine filed a tax fraud case against Michael Saylor, who according to the AG, has lived in D.C. for more than a decade and has never paid district income taxes while operating his Virginia-based data tracking company MicroStrategy. Saylor and the company said Racine's claims aren't valid. Racine brought the lawsuit under a recently updated law that allows whistleblowers to collect a percentage of money recouped in tax fraud cases. Racine is seeking the recovery of tens of millions of dollars in unpaid income taxes and penalties. According to Racine, the former MicroStrategy CEO publicly called D.C. home since around 2005: “He lives in a 7,000 square foot penthouse on the Georgetown waterfront and has docked at least two of his luxury yachts in the District for long periods of time.” Racine said the whistleblower has documentation, including MicroStrategy flight logs and social media posts showing Saylor claimed Florida residency. The complaint alleges Saylor “openly bragged to friends and acquaintances about evading DC taxes and encouraged others to follow his example.” Saylor said in a statement that he moved into a historic house in Miami Beach a decade ago and disagrees with Racine’s claims: “Although MicroStrategy is based in Virginia, Florida is where I live, vote, and have reported for jury duty, and it is at the center of my personal and family life.” MicroStrategy said the case is a “personal tax matter” involving Saylor: The company wasn’t “responsible for his day-to-day affairs and did not oversee his individual tax responsibilities. Nor did the Company conspire with Mr. Saylor in the discharge of his personal tax responsibilities. The District of Columbia’s claims against the Company are false and we will defend aggressively against this overreach.”

The FTC has an obligation to prevent the tech industry from “monopolizing” the auto industry and abusing data associated with cars, Fight for the Future said in a petition filed Wednesday. Companies like Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook have a history of abusing data, and the industry is using its dominance to “coerce auto companies to incorporate their services” like Google Maps, Android Auto, Amazon Alexa Voice Assistant and Apple CarPlay, the petition said. “To protect consumer privacy and market competition, the FTC should revive structural separations as a policy tool to prevent the concentration of private power and the control of vital industries in the hands of a few tech executives,” the organization said. The agency declined comment.

Roomster misled consumers seeking affordable housing by “paying for fake reviews and then charging for access to phony listings,” the FTC said Tuesday in a lawsuit filed with six states against the online rental platform. The commission authorized filing the complaint with a 5-0 vote. Attorneys general in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York signed the complaint. Roomster and owners John Shriber and Roman Zaks took “tens of millions of dollars from largely low-income and student prospective renters who need reliable housing the most and can least afford to lose money,” the agency said. Enforcers filed a separate lawsuit against Jonathan Martinez, who they claim sold Roomster “tens of thousands of fake reviews.” Martinez reached a $100,000 settlement that requires his cooperation with the investigation. Since 2016, the platform and Martinez flooded the internet with “tens of thousands of fake positive reviews to bolster their false claims that properties listed on their Roomster platform are real, available, and verified,” the FTC said in its complaint, alleging the defendants “have taken in excess of $27 million from consumers.” The complaint seeks civil penalty awards in various states ranging from $2,000 to $50,000 per violation. “There is a term for lying and deceiving your customers to grow your business: Fraud,” said New York AG Letitia James (D). “Roomster used illegal and unacceptable practices to grow its business at the expense of low-income renters and students.” Roomster and an attorney for Martinez didn’t comment.

Meta’s purchase of Within Unlimited and its virtual reality fitness app Supernatural is a pro-competitive transaction that will benefit consumers, Meta and Within argued in separate filings Friday in 5:22-cv-04325 before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (see 2208240023). The agency failed to establish that the defendants have market power in a relevant market, the two companies argued. The FTC’s “artificial argument” excludes a wide range of fitness products, and Meta had no plan to create its own VR fitness product before the purchase, Meta said. The agency failed to provide any plausible harm to consumer welfare, Within argued.

Washington, D.C., will appeal a D.C. Superior Court decision affirming its dismissal of the city’s antitrust case against Amazon (see 2208050015), D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said Thursday in case 2021 CA 001775 B. The Court of Appeals will set a briefing schedule for the appeal in the coming weeks, said Racine: “We’re appealing the lower court’s decision because District consumers deserve a fair marketplace that promotes competition, innovation, and choice. And we’re filing this appeal because the antitrust laws and the facts are on our side.”

The FTC agreed to drop Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg from its antitrust lawsuit against the company in exchange for Zuckerberg agreeing not to unilaterally purchase Within Unlimited and its virtual reality fitness app Supernatural (see 2207270059). The two sides agreed Tuesday to a joint stipulation dropping Zuckerberg as a defendant in 5:22-cv-04325 before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The FTC agreed to dismiss its claims against Zuckerberg as an individual, and the CEO agreed not to acquire Within Unlimited in his personal capacity or through any entity he controls.

DoubleVerify’s fraud lab detected a new variant of LeoTerra, the connected TV advertising fraud scheme, that impersonates IoT devices and hides fraudulent behavior, said the digital media measurement software platform on Wednesday. The three LeoTerra variants detected thus far have spoofed more than 92 million devices during 2022's first half and up to 3.5 million device signatures a day, it said. LeoTerra is a server-side ad insertion tool that fraudsters use to spoof large numbers of devices, it said. Bad actors use online device information sources, where they download lists of devices and incorporate the device information inside their falsified ad requests, it said: “This makes it appear as if their fraudulent traffic is coming from millions of different devices.”

DOJ requested permission to participate in oral argument in support of 48 state attorneys general leading an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook (see 2203150046). The AGs, led by New York AG Letitia James (D), agreed to grant DOJ 10 minutes of their 25 minutes allotted for argument Sept. 19, said the filing Tuesday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in docket 21-7078. DOJ noted Facebook parent Meta hasn’t taken a position on the motion and won’t file a response. The U.S. has a “significant interest” in the application of antitrust law, and the district court’s order dismissing the states’ antitrust claims raises “significant and unjustified barriers” to Sherman Act Section 2 enforcement by “incorrectly analyzing anticompetitive conditions to ongoing deals under the more onerous standards reserved for unconditional, unilateral refusals to deal,” DOJ said.

Public comments are due Nov. 18 on how “children are affected by digital advertising and marketing messages that may blur the line between ads and entertainment,” the FTC said Tuesday. The comment solicitation is part of an agency effort that includes an Oct. 19 event on online safety for children (see 2205190058). The FTC declined to extend the public comment period for a proposed rule “that would ban junk fees and bait-and-switch advertising tactics that can plague consumers throughout the car-buying experience.” The commission voted 5-0 to keep the Sept. 22 deadline, saying stakeholders argued in favor of both extending and declining the extension. The public will have had 80 days to review the proposed rule at deadline, the agency said.