Welcome to Compliance Hot Spots, our briefing on compliance, enforcement and government affairs. Another week has come with another story of a company's security lapse—this time, a flaw that exposed the profile data of Google+ (RIP) users. So what better time to look at the Federal Trade Commission turning up the heat in its push for expanded authority to assess fines in data privacy cases? Fines can hurt, after all. A Democratic commissioner, Rebecca Slaughter, recently addressed the current gaps in the FTC's authority and the deterrent power of fines.

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With a sweeping, newly-enacted data security rule, the European Union has emerged as the top cop on the consumer privacy beat. Its authority to levy fines of 20 million euros—or, alternatively, 4 percent of a company's global annual revenue—amounts to a big stick.