Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

Do Consumers Want a Do-Not-Mail List?

Chris Jay Hoofnagle and Jennifer M. Urban, both of Berkeley Law, and Su Li of Berkely’s Center for the Study of Law and Society, have written Privacy and Advertising Mail.  Here’s the abstract: In this paper, we consider why Americans may frame the generation and receipt of unsolicited advertising mail as a privacy violation. We then present data […]

Times: Banks Seek a Shield in Mortgage Rules

Here.  It's about the CFPB's forthcoming qualified mortgage rules. An excerpt: The rules are meant to help bolster the housing market. By shielding banks from potential litigation, policy makers contend that the industry will have a powerful incentive to make higher quality home loans. But some banking and housing specialists worry that borrowers are losing […]

House GOP Committee Attacks CFPB Head Cordray for Attending State of the Union Address

by Jeff Sovern I kid you not. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Darrell Issa, and its Subcommittee on TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs, chaired by longtime CFPB foe Patrick McHenry, has issued a report titled THE CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU’S THREAT TO CREDIT ACCESS IN THE UNITED STATES.  Here […]

Calo’s Against Notice Skepticism

by Jeff Sovern I've moved on to the privacy chapter of our casebook, and in that regard I just finished reading M. Ryan Calo's (Calo is at the University of Washington and affilated with Stanford)  intriguing Against Notice Skepticism In Privacy (And Elsewhere), 87 Notre Dame Law Review 1027 (2012).  Before I add my two […]

Richard Frankel Paper on Arbitration Clauses

Richard Frankel of Drexel has written The Arbitration Clause as Super Contract.  Here's the abstract: It is widely acknowledged that the purpose of the Federal Arbitration Act was to place arbitration clauses on “equal footing” with other contracts. Nonetheless,federal and state courts have placed arbitration clauses on a pedestal by creating special interpretive rules for […]

CFPB Announces Proposed Policy for Letting Companies Test Disclosure Programs

by Jeff Sovern Here.  The idea is that a company can apply to the Bureau for permission to try different disclosures and the disclosures can then be evaluated, and perhaps adopted.  In its statement announcing the proposal, the Bureau says: When deciding whether or not to grant a company a waiver from current disclosure requirements, the […]

Major CFPB Report on Credit Reporting Agencies

by Jeff Sovern Here.  Two points from the Executive Summary, though there's quite a bit more than this:  The NCRAs have created an automated system for handling consumer disputes and forwarding them to data furnishers. Through this automated system – called e-OSCAR – the NCRAs provide furnishers with one or two numeric codes indicating the […]

Engel & Mccoy on Preemption After Dodd-Frank

Kathleen C. Engel of Suffolk Patricia A. McCoy of Connecticut have written Federal Preemption and Consumer Financial Protection: Past and Future, 3 Banking & Financial Services Policy Report 25 (2012).  Here is the abstract: Many states and cities filled the void by passing anti-predatory lending laws of their own. Lenders, worried about potential liability, quickly organized a […]