Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

Privacy Invasions That Also Discriminate

by Jeff Sovern Regular readers of this blog will know that businesses use cookies, etc. to track consumer online behavior for marketing purposes. But what may be less well known is that businesses use the information they glean online to offer different consumers different prices.  A recent paper makes the point. See Jakub Mikians, László […]

Freer on Recent (and Future?) Supreme Court Class Action Cases

Richard D. Freer of Emory has written The Supreme Court and the Class Action: Where We Are and Where We Might Be Going.  Here's the abstract: In 2010 and 2011, the Supreme Court decided five class action cases. In 2012, it has agreed to hear four more. This piece summarizes what the Court has done […]

Another Concepcion Paper, This Time From Harvard

David Korn and David Rosenberg of Harvard have written Concepcion's Pro-Defendant Biasing of the Arbitration Process: The Class Counsel Solution.  Here's the abstract: By mandating that numerous plaintiffs litigate their common question claims separately in individual arbitrations rather than jointly in class action arbitrations, the Supreme Court in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion created a […]

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 […]