Florencia Marotta-Wurgler of NYU has written Understanding Privacy Policies: Content, Self-Regulation, and Markets. Here is the abstract: The current regulatory approach to consumer information privacy is based on a “notice and choice” self-regulation model, but commentators disagree on its impact. I conduct a comprehensive empirical analysis of 261 privacy policies across seven markets and measure […]
Category Archives: Consumer Law Scholarship
Howard Beales of George Washington University's School of Business and Timothy J. Muris of George Mason have written FTC Consumer Protection at 100: 1970s Redux or Protecting Markets to Protect Consumers? 83 George Washington Law Review 2157(2015). Here is the abstract: Throughout most of the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC” or “Commission”) history, the agency has been […]
Imre S. Szalai of Loyola New Orleans has written DIRECTV, Inc. v. Imburgia: How the Supreme Court Used a Jedi Mind Trick To Turn Arbitration Law Upside Down, 32 Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, 1, (2016 Forthcoming). Here's the abstract: The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) is the primary federal statute governing millions of arbitration […]
Chris Jay Hoofnagle of Berkeley has written Assessing the Federal Trade Commission's Privacy Assessments, 14(2) IEEE Security & Privacy 58–64 (Mar/Apr. 2016). Here is the abstract: Consumer protection regulators worldwide share basic problems: the companies that regulators police are so powerful and rich that fines do not matter. Consider the French with their €150,000 fine […]
Oren Bar-Gill of Harvard and Kevin E. Davis of NYU have written (Mis)perceptions of Law in Consumer Markets. Here's the abstract: There are good reasons to believe that consumers’ behavior is sometimes influenced by systematic misperceptions of legal norms that govern product quality. Consumers might misperceive specific rules, such as those found in food safety […]
We have received the following Call for Papers: The three Consumer-Protection related committees of the ABA Antitrust Section (Consumer Protection, Privacy, and Advertising Disputes & Litigation Committees) are excited to announce a new initiative geared towards young lawyers and law students interested in the consumer protection and privacy fields – an opportunity to get published […]
Tess Wilkinson‐Ryan of Penn has written Contracts Without Terms. Here is the abstract: In consumer contracting, the ritual of documentation and provision of terms is essentially vestigial, at least as a form of deal-making communication between the parties. This paper starts with a thought experiment: what would it look like to have contracts but no […]
by Jeff Sovern I've gradually been making my way through Chris Hoofnagle's new book, Federal Trade Commission Privacy Law and Policy (more about that below). For those who want to sample the book before ordering it, Chris has posted the Introduction and an excerpt to SSRN here. The book opens with an interesting history of […]
D. Bruce Johnsen of George Mason has written A Closer Look at Payment Cards. Here is the abstract: This essay takes a closer look at the U.S. payment card system, primarily debit cards. I examine the bundle of transactional services this and other types of payment cards provide. My goal, in large part, is to […]
Frank A. Pasquale III of Maryland has written Democratizing Higher Education: Defending and Extending Income-Based Repayment Programs, Loyola Consumer Law Review (Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: This article addresses many critiques of income-based repayment programs for student loan debt. These programs are not helping many of the students they were designed to aid. Their terms […]