The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has charged 29 individuals and corporations with sending millions of spam texts.

The messages, which promised prizes like free gift cards worth up to $1,000 form retailers like Wal-mart and Best Buy, were sent to random phone numbers.

In exchange for the gift cards, consumers were tricked into exposing their personal information, including their credit card credentials. The information gathered from the targeted customers would be ultimately sold to third-party companies.

As had long been expected, Google largely emerged from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation unharmed.

The FTC had been investigating Google's business practices since mid-2011 to determine whether the company was abusing its dominance in search results to keep ahead of rivals. The FTC did uncover some questionable practices on the part of Google, but let it walked away without any major penalties.

However, Google suffered a considerable setback related to Motorola, which the Internet search giant had acquired in the midst of the investigation.

On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revealed that it is mulling online privacy regulations which will require advertisers and social networks to seek the permission of parents before collecting personal information about children aged 12 years and below.

Proposing restrictive requirements for websites for children, the FTC said that more stringent online privacy rules will make it difficult for advertising networks, social networks and other third-party partners of Websites to collect personal details about children without permission from parents.

Recent reports indicate that Intel Corp. and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission are settling on an agreement over the organization’s anti-trust probe against the globe’s largest computer chip manufacturer.

Two persons aware of the matter said that a contract might be sealed as early as this week. The persons refused to be named as they are not allowed to talk about the ongoing discussions. They said that they didn’t have any knowledge about the particulars of the upcoming agreement.