The Federal Trade Commission issued final decision and orders on August 26, 2026 against CMG Media Corporation, MindSift LLC and 1010 Digital Works LLC, converting a $930,000 settlement over a fabricated AI voice-targeting advertising product into binding obligations that run for two decades.

The Commission announced the finalisation on August 27, 2026, three months after it first made the proposed consent agreements public. Three separate decision and orders were signed by Secretary April J. Tabor and issued under docket numbers C-4838, C-4839 and C-4840, corresponding to file numbers 242-3029, 242-3030 and 242-3033. The vote to grant final approval was 2-0, with Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson and Commissioner Mark R. Meador sitting on a Commission that currently has three vacant seats.

Two comments were filed during the public comment period, according to the FTC. The agency did not describe their content in the announcement.

The underlying conduct was documented when the FTC first announced the settlement in May 2026. Cox Media Groupand its two partner firms sold small businesses a product called Active Listening, marketed as an artificial intelligence system that detected purchase intent from conversations captured by smartphones, smart televisions and smart speakers, then targeted advertising to those consumers within a defined local radius. No such capability existed. What the companies actually delivered were consumer email lists bought from third-party data brokers and resold at a markup, with geographic coverage that bore little relation to the territories customers had purchased.

What changed on August 26 is not the finding but its enforceability.

What the final orders require

Each of the three orders opens with the same prohibition. Respondents and their officers, agents, employees and attorneys, along with anyone acting in concert with them who receives actual notice, must not misrepresent, expressly or by implication, four categories of claim: the qualities or features of their advertising or marketing services; the collection and use of voice data; consumers' consent to the collection, use or disclosure of voice data; and the geographic targeting capabilities of their services.

The definition attached to that prohibition is broad. Voice Data, as defined in all three orders, means any full or partial audio file of an individual's voice, voice communications or audio communications, together with any transcripts of such an audio file. Transcripts fall inside the definition, which closes the gap that a vendor might otherwise claim between recorded audio and processed text derived from it.

None of the three companies admitted wrongdoing. Each order records that the respondent neither admits nor denies the allegations in the complaint, except as specifically stated in the decision and order, and that it admits the facts necessary to establish jurisdiction for purposes of the action alone.

Money held in escrow, payable in eight days

The financial provisions carry unusually short fuses. CMG Media Corporation must pay $880,000 to the Commission. MindSift LLC and 1010 Digital Works LLC must each pay $25,000. In all three cases the orders record that the sum is already held in escrow by the respondent's undersigned counsel for no purpose other than payment to the Commission, and that transfer must be made by electronic funds transfer within eight days of the order's effective date.

That effective date is the date of publication on ftc.gov as a final order, not the date of issuance.

Default provisions attach interest computed as if pursuant to 28 U.S.C. section 1961(a), running from the date of default. Where a default continues for ten days past the due date, the entire amount becomes immediately due and payable. Each day of nonpayment is treated as a separate offence and violation of a final Commission order, for which a civil penalty accrues.

The bankruptcy language is the sharper instrument. Under all three orders, the facts alleged in the complaint will be taken as true without further proof in any subsequent civil litigation brought by or on behalf of the Commission to enforce payment, including a nondischargeability complaint in a bankruptcy case. The orders further state that those alleged facts establish all elements necessary to sustain an action under Section 523(a)(2)(A) of the Bankruptcy Code, and that the order carries collateral estoppel effect for that purpose. Section 523(a)(2)(A) covers debts obtained by false pretences, false representation or actual fraud. A respondent that enters bankruptcy cannot shed the obligation, and cannot relitigate the underlying findings to try.

Money paid to the Commission may be deposited into a fund used for consumer redress and the administrative costs of running it. Should direct redress prove wholly or partly impracticable, or should money remain once redress is complete, the Commission may apply the balance to other relief reasonably related to the practices alleged, including consumer information remedies. Anything unused goes to the U.S. Treasury. The respondents have no right to challenge activity under that provision.

Redress administration depends on customer records the companies themselves supply. Each order requires the respondent to provide sufficient customer information to allow the Commission to administer redress to all purchasers of the advertising and marketing services covered by the misrepresentations, and records that the respondent represents it has already done so. Further information requested in writing must arrive within 14 days.

A twenty-year compliance regime

The monetary sums are modest relative to the compliance architecture built around them.

Each order terminates 20 years from its issuance date, or 20 years from the most recent date on which the United States or the Commission files a federal court complaint alleging any violation of the order, whichever falls later. A dismissed complaint, or a federal court ruling that the respondent did not violate the order, resets the clock as though the complaint had never been filed, provided the dismissal or ruling is not appealed or is upheld on appeal.

Within that window, the obligations are continuous rather than dormant.

Acknowledgments. Each respondent must submit a sworn acknowledgment of receipt within 10 days of the effective date. For 20 years, any business the respondent majority-owns or controls must receive a copy of the order, delivered to all principals, officers, directors and LLC managers and members, to all employees with managerial responsibility for conduct related to the order's subject matter, to agents and representatives who participate in such conduct, and to any business entity resulting from a structural change. Current personnel must receive it within 10 days of the effective date. Everyone else must receive it before assuming their responsibilities. Signed and dated acknowledgments must be collected within 30 days.

Compliance reporting. A sworn compliance report falls due one year after the issuance date. It must identify designated points of contact, list every business the respondent operates by name, telephone number and physical, postal, email and internet address, describe each business including goods and services offered and the means of advertising, marketing and sales used, and describe in detail how the respondent complies with each provision, including all changes made. Copies of every acknowledgment obtained must accompany it.

Notices. Sworn compliance notices are due within 14 days of any change to a designated point of contact, or to the structure of any entity the respondent owns or controls in a manner that may affect compliance obligations, including creation, merger, sale or dissolution of that entity or of any subsidiary, parent or affiliate engaged in acts subject to the order. Notice of any bankruptcy or insolvency filing is due within 14 days of filing. Submissions go to DEbrief@ftc.gov or by overnight courier, expressly not by U.S. Postal Service, to the Associate Director for Enforcement at the Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Recordkeeping. For 20 years after issuance, each respondent must create a defined set of records and retain each for five years. The list runs to accounting records showing revenues, costs and net profit or loss; personnel records naming everyone providing services related to any aspect of the order, with addresses, telephone numbers, job titles, dates of service and reasons for termination; copies of all consumer complaints and refund requests received directly or through third parties, along with responses; and a copy of each unique advertisement or marketing material making a representation subject to the order.

Two categories in that list reach beyond routine bookkeeping. For five years from the last dissemination of any covered representation, respondents must retain all materials relied upon in making it, and all tests, studies, analyses, demonstrations, research or other evidence in their possession that contradicts, qualifies or otherwise calls the representation into question. Separately, for five years from creation or receipt, they must retain all records that demonstrate non-compliance or tend to show any lack of compliance with the order.

The second of those requires a company to preserve the evidence of its own breach.

Monitoring. Within 10 days of a written request from a Commission representative, respondents must submit additional sworn compliance reports or other requested information and produce records for inspection and copying. Commission representatives are authorised to communicate directly with respondents, who must permit interviews of any affiliated person who agrees to one, with counsel present if the interviewee wishes. The Commission may also use all other lawful means, including posing through its representatives as consumers, suppliers or other individuals or entities, without identification or prior notice. Nothing in the orders limits the use of compulsory process under Sections 9 and 20 of the FTC Act.

One order is drafted wider than the other two

The three documents are close to identical, with one substantive divergence.

The prohibition in the MindSift and 1010 Digital Works orders binds conduct in connection with the advertising, promotion, offering for sale, sale or distribution of advertising or marketing services. The CMG order adds a clause: those services must be ones offered by the respondent, or by any business the respondent controls.

The practical reach differs accordingly. CMG Media Corporation is a Delaware corporation with its principal office at 1601 W. Peachtree Street NE in Atlanta, Georgia, operating a portfolio of broadcast and local marketing businesses. The added clause pulls controlled subsidiaries inside the prohibition rather than leaving them outside a corporate boundary. MindSift, a New Hampshire limited liability company at 142 Main Street, Suite 405 in Nashua, and 1010 Digital Works, a single-member Wisconsin company at 11923 N. Wilderness Ct. in Mequon, present no comparable structure. The findings in the 1010 Digital Works order name Dmitriy Shteynbuk, also known as Dmitry Shteynbuk and Dmitry Shteyn, as its sole member. The MindSift findings name no member.

There is a wrinkle worth recording in the source documents themselves. All three orders label two consecutive provisions under Compliance Reports and Notices with the letter D, one covering the sworn declaration format under 28 U.S.C. section 1746 and one covering the submission address. The duplication is a drafting artifact rather than a substantive gap, and both provisions are operative.

A second inconsistency sits in the FTC announcement. The press release headline and opening paragraph describe the orders as finalised, while a later paragraph describes the payment and prohibition terms as sitting "under the proposed orders settling the FTC's allegations." The consent agreements were proposed in May and final in August. The orders themselves carry no such ambiguity.

Enforcement context

The Commission that voted on these orders has been active in advertising and marketing matters through 2026 while operating with two sitting members.

On August 19, 2026, the same two commissioners voted 2-0 to authorise a proposed enforcement policy statement declaring that undisclosed personalized pricing likely constitutes an unfair or deceptive act under Section 5. In May 2026 the agency closed its four-year Kochava location data case with a stipulated order restricting the sale of precise location data tied to sensitive locations without explicit consent, also on a 2-0 vote. In April 2026 it sued WPP, Publicis and Dentsu over alleged brand safety coordination.

The Active Listening matters trace a line back to Operation AI Comply, the enforcement sweep launched on September 25, 2024 against companies exploiting artificial intelligence claims, and forward to the agency's 2026-2030 strategic plan, published April 6, 2026, which names deceptive advertising and privacy violations as priorities.

The administrative route the Commission used here is not unchallenged. In March 2026 the Fifth Circuit vacated the FTC's in-house order against Intuit, a decision that questioned the agency's internal adjudication of deceptive advertising claims. Consent orders differ from litigated administrative decisions: the respondents here agreed to the terms rather than contesting them, and the orders record waivers required by the Commission's rules. The vulnerability the Fifth Circuit identified does not obviously extend to negotiated settlements, though enforcement of these orders would proceed through federal court.

Why this matters for the marketing community

The dollar figures are small by the standards of ad tech enforcement. What the final orders establish is a template.

For 20 years, three vendors of advertising services carry an affirmative duty to substantiate any representation about voice data, consent or geographic targeting, and to preserve the evidence that would undercut those representations. A marketing services company operating under such an order cannot quietly discard an internal analysis showing that its geotargeting delivers a fraction of the claimed local coverage. The record must exist, and the Commission can demand it within 10 days.

That obligation lands on claims that are common currency in the sector. Radius targeting, intent signals, opt-in audience provenance and AI-driven inference are standard vocabulary across programmatic supply chains, retail media networks and local media sales teams. The Active Listening complaints did not turn on a novel legal theory. They turned on the distance between a sales deck and a data pipeline.

The consent finding carries further. Both the Commission's position that clicking through app terms of service does not amount to opt-in for voice collection, and its earlier warning that hashed identifiers are not anonymous, point the same direction: the legal weight of a consent claim depends on what a consumer was actually told and actually agreed to, not on the technical or contractual mechanism a vendor points to afterwards. The same logic sat behind the January 2024 action that banned InMarket Media from selling precise location data without informed consent, and behind the November 2024 guidance that data clean rooms are not privacy-preserving by default.

There is a demand-side dimension the orders cannot reach. Small businesses bought Active Listening because the pitch was detailed, referenced recognisable platforms and carried specific percentage figures. Academic work on AI washinghas framed the cycle: exaggerated capability claims produce backlash, backlash produces scepticism, and scepticism raises the cost of substantiating genuine capability. Redress will return some money to CMG customers. It will not restore the two years of budget those customers spent on a targeting method that did not exist.

Legislation moving through Congress would formalise parts of this enforcement posture. The SECURE Data Act would establish a national consumer privacy framework with enforcement authority at the FTC and a public data broker registry. The Active Listening orders demonstrate what the agency can already reach under Section 5 without it.

Timeline

  • 2023 - CMG Media Corporation begins selling Active Listening to small businesses, sourcing the service from MindSift on a white-label basis; MindSift and 1010 Digital Works also sell it directly (PPC Land)
  • January 2024 - The FTC bans InMarket Media from selling or licensing precise location data (PPC Land)
  • July 2024 - The Commission warns that hashed data is not anonymous (PPC Land)
  • September 25, 2024 - Operation AI Comply launches, targeting deceptive artificial intelligence claims (PPC Land)
  • November 2024 - The Commission warns that data clean rooms are not privacy-preserving by default (PPC Land)
  • Mid-2024 - Active Listening is discontinued or substantially wound down (PPC Land)
  • March 2026 - The Fifth Circuit vacates the FTC's in-house order against Intuit, raising questions about administrative adjudication of deceptive advertising (PPC Land)
  • April 6, 2026 - The FTC publishes its 2026-2030 strategic plan naming deceptive advertising and privacy as priorities (PPC Land)
  • April 2026 - The Commission sues WPP, Publicis and Dentsu over alleged brand safety coordination (PPC Land)
  • May 2026 - The FTC closes the Kochava location data case with a stipulated order on consent (PPC Land)
  • May 21, 2026 - The Commission announces the three proposed consent agreements totalling $930,000 and votes 2-0 to issue administrative complaints (PPC Land)
  • August 19, 2026 - The same two commissioners vote 2-0 to authorise a proposed policy statement on undisclosed personalized pricing (PPC Land)
  • August 26, 2026 - Secretary April J. Tabor issues final decision and orders in dockets C-4838, C-4839 and C-4840
  • August 27, 2026 - The FTC announces finalisation, noting two comments received and a 2-0 vote for final approval

Summary

Who: CMG Media Corporation, doing business as Cox Media Group, a Delaware corporation based in Atlanta; MindSift LLC of Nashua, New Hampshire; and 1010 Digital Works LLC of Mequon, Wisconsin, whose sole member is Dmitriy Shteynbuk. The orders were issued by Secretary April J. Tabor on behalf of a Commission comprising Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson and Commissioner Mark R. Meador.

What: Final decision and orders in dockets C-4838, C-4839 and C-4840 requiring payment of $880,000 from CMG and $25,000 each from MindSift and 1010 Digital Works within eight days of the effective date, prohibiting misrepresentations about advertising service features, voice data collection, consumer consent and geographic targeting capability, and imposing 20 years of acknowledgment, reporting, recordkeeping and monitoring obligations.

When: The orders were issued on August 26, 2026 and announced on August 27, 2026, following a 30-day public comment period on consent agreements first made public on May 21, 2026. The conduct at issue ran from 2023 to mid-2024.

Where: Before the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., with respondents based in Georgia, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Payment and compliance submissions route to the Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Why: The three companies marketed Active Listening as an artificial intelligence service that detected purchase intent from conversations captured by consumers' smart devices and targeted advertising within a defined local area, and told customers consumers had opted in. The service used no voice data, consumers had not opted in, and the audiences delivered were email lists bought from data brokers with limited local coverage. The FTC found the conduct violated the FTC Act, and stated that had the service worked as advertised, collecting and using voice data without adequate consent would itself have violated the Act.