Can consumers bring a Lanham Act claim for false advertising against a company that deceived them? In an opinion issued yesterday, the Sixth Circuit said no. Applying the Supreme Court’s 2014 Lexmark decision, the court held that only those who suffer an injury to a commercial interest are within the zone of interest of the […]
The public comment period closed yesterday on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed rule to create a public registry for terms and conditions in non-negotiable nonbank contracts that limit consumer rights and protections. The proposal recognized a certain powerlessness of consumers who are forced to surrender critical rights when seeking out essential financial products. Part […]
Gregory M. Dickinson of St. Thomas has written Privately Policing Dark Patterns, 57 Ga. L. Rev. (2023 Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: Lawmakers around the country are crafting new laws to target “dark patterns”—user interface designs that trick or coerce users into enabling cell phone location tracking, sharing browsing data, initiating automatic billing, or making […]
The D.C. Circuit today issued an opinion granting a Rule 23(f) petition and vacating a district court’s denial of class certification on the grounds that the class definition created an impermissible “fail-safe” class– i.e., a class whose membership can only be ascertained through a determination of the merits of the case. The plaintiffs, former employee […]
In 2020, Minnesota adopted the Alec Smith Insulin Affordability Act which, among other things, requires drug manufacturers to provide insulin for free to Minnesota residents who meet certain criteria. PhRMA sued in federal court, alleging the law constituted a Takings Clause violation, and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The district court dismissed the suit on […]
The Regulatory Review blog reports that “With 77 percent of online shoppers using reviews to inform their purchase decisions, customer reviews play a crucial role in shaping international commerce. Fake reviews, which include manufactured and deceptive reviews, constitute about 4 percent of all reviews online. This 4 percent translates to a cost to consumers of […]
In recent years, major media organizations have been lobbying Congress to enact legislation, the “Journalism Competition and Preservation Act,” requiring search engine providers to engage in a form of collective bargaining about the tax they would pay to media publishers for the privilege of providing links to their news articles, backed up by mandatory interest […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has finalized a rule required by Congress to increase transparency in small business lending, promote economic development, and combat unlawful discrimination. Lenders will collect and report information about the small business credit applications they receive, including geographic and demographic data, lending decisions, and the price of credit. A summary, with […]
It was almost twenty years ago that Barbra Streisand filed a lawsuit that attempted to block access to a photograph of her oceanfront estate, bringing unwanted attention to the photo and leading to her being enshrined by Techdirt’s Mike Masnick in tech/legal terminology as the progenitor of “the Streisand Effect.” Now we have Cooley v. […]
As a result of a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit, the operators of a telemarketing scam that called hundreds of thousands of consumers nationwide to pitch them expensive “extended automobile warranties” will face a lifetime ban from the extended automobile warranty industry and from all outbound telemarketing. The FTC’s press release is here.