The ALI is working on a new project, Principles of the Law, Civil Liability for Artificial Intelligence. NYU Professor Mark Geistfeld is the reporter. Alan Kaplinsky interviewed him for Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Finance Monitor podcast about the project and some of AI’s implications for consumer law.
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Regular Amazon users probably know that if they agree to subscribe to certain products and receive deliveries at regular intervals, Amazon charges less than if they buy the items one at a time. But now some plaintiffs have brought a would-be class action in which they claim that Amazon raises the price after someone subscribes, […]
As reported by Bloomberg’s Evan Weinberger, the CFPB has removed from its website all public statements made before February 2025. That includes reports like the Bureau’s extensive arbitration study. Somehow, I am not surprised.
Barney Frank, whose name graces the Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB and enacted multiple consumer protections, has died at the age of 86. As long as the CFPB protects consumers (it will rise again!), the CFPB and the Consumer Financial Protection Act stand as a memorial to Frank’s important work to protect Americans.
Kate Elengold of UNC and Sophie Laing Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Inc. have written Offsetting Justice: Using Government Power To Collect Private Debts, 175 Penn. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2027). Here’s the abstract: Private creditors regularly hire third-party debt collectors to recoup debt on their behalf by contacting, coercing, and suing consumer debtors. Scholars, advocates, and policymakers […]
Here. Remember how the Trump CFPB rescinded numerous Biden CFPB initiatives? Democrats plan to seek a vote under the Congressional Review Act on the withdrawal of many of the initiatives. The CRA resolutions are not expected to pass.
Congratulations to California consumers! Politico has the story here.
Back in 2022, the FTC accused Kochava of engaging in unfair practices because it sold vast amounts of data obtained from smart phones, including geolocation data (where the phones were); profiles of consumers, including their marital status, ethnicity, gender identity, political association, employment; what phone apps they had and how much time they spent on […]
Michael Blasie of Seattle has written Information Poverty and the Right to Understand. Here is the abstract: Legal systems around the world, and particularly in the United States, rest on a foundational delusion: that ordinary people can understand the laws and legal documents that govern them. Despite the growing focus on “access to justice,” most […]
Then listen to this episode of Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Finance Monitor podcast.