On January 17, 2013, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the final omnibus rule that among other things (1) increases patient privacy protections; (2) provides individuals with new rights to receive a copy of their electronic medical record in an electronic form;  and (3) provides

Playdom, Inc., an online game company owned by Disney, and Playdom’s CEO, Howard Marks, agreed to pay $3 million to settle charges brought by the FTC that they violated COPPA by collecting, using and disclosing the personal information of children under the age of 13 without their parents’ prior, verifiable consent. The $3 million settlement is the largest civil penalty ever for a COPPA violation.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced on April 28, 2009 that it had fined Centaurus Financial, Inc., of Anaheim, California, $175,000 for Centaurus’s failure to protect confidential customer information. FINRA also required Centaurus to send notifications to affected customers and their brokers, provide one year of credit monitoring at no cost to the affected customers, and certify to FINRA that its procedures and systems are in compliance with privacy requirements. See FINRA News Release (April 28, 2009).