U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew N. Ferguson has warned major American technology companies that acceding to foreign government demands to weaken encryption or censor online speech could violate U.S. consumer-protection law. In letters dated 21 August and sent to 13 firms—including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Cloudflare, Meta and Microsoft—Ferguson said that degrading security or restricting content at the request of overseas regulators may amount to deceptive or unfair practices under Section 5 of the FTC Act if companies have promised users robust privacy and data protection. The chair cited Europe’s Digital Services Act and the United Kingdom’s Online Safety and Investigatory Powers Acts as examples of measures that could pressure firms to dilute end-to-end encryption or expand content takedowns. He cautioned that companies might adopt the most restrictive standards globally to simplify compliance, thereby exposing Americans to heightened surveillance and fraud risk. "If a company promises consumers that it encrypts or otherwise keeps secure online communications but adopts weaker security due to the actions of a foreign government, such conduct may deceive consumers," Ferguson wrote. The warning follows Apple’s temporary removal this year of its Advanced Data Protection feature in the U.K. amid back-door access demands—a request London dropped after U.S. diplomatic pushback. Ferguson signaled the commission is prepared to open investigations should firms secretly alter security features or censorship policies to satisfy foreign rules without adequate user disclosure.