A column in the Washington Post today explains Facebook's new "Off-Facebook Activity" tool and suggests privacy settings you can change. Ever suspect the Facebook app is listening to you? What we now know is even creepier. Facebook is giving us a new way to glimpse just how much it knows about us: On Tuesday, the […]
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
The Montana Law Review is seeking papers on consumer law for a symposium to be held next September: The Montana Law Review invites submissions for the 2020 biennial Browning Symposium at the University of Montana’s Blewett School of Law. The symposium will take place September 24 and 25 in Missoula, Montana. The topic this biennium […]
The briefing is almost complete in Seila Law. v. Consumer Financial Protection Agency. In that case, the Supreme Court will consider whether the structure of the CFPB, which was established by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010, violates the separation of powers because the agency has a single direct who is removable by […]
Reuters reports on how protective orders sealing evidence about defective cars, drugs, and other products from public view can hide health and safety information from the public and impede government agencies — such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Food and Drug Administration — from protecting the public. The article is here.
The Hill reports: Roughly 58.5 billion robocalls were made in the U.S. last year, according to new research, marking a 22 percent increase from 2018. YouMail, a company that provides a service to block robocalls, estimated that the average American received 178.3 robocalls during the year. The full story is here.
A report released Tuesday by the Norwegian Consumer Council, a government-funded nonprofit organization in Oslo, describes how apps on our phones systematically violate users’ privacy collecting and sharing information with third-party advertisers without users’ knowledge or consent. The report "demonstrate[s] how every time we use our phones, a large number of shadowy entities that are […]
The Center for Justice & Democracy at New York Law School has released a report examining both safety risks and disappearing legal rights for commuters and business travelers. The study presents an overview of some of the most common yet dangerous methods of transportation today and explores the shrinking legal options available to individuals harmed […]
An investigation by Senator Cantwell's oversight staff found that a "series of high-profile failures to effectively recall dangerous products has called into question the ability of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to adequately protect American consumers from unsafe and defective products. An extensive review by U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation […]
The Washington Post today reports on the expected effect of California's consumer privacy law, which was enacted in June 2018 and takes effect on January 1, 2020. The law aims to protect consumers from having their information sold without their knowledge or consent. The article — Calif consumer privacy law can affect businesses across U.S. […]
The New York Times has a lengthy piece today on location tracking through smartphones. Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and storing the information in gigantic data files. The Times […]