Category Archives: Consumer Law Scholarship

David Adam Friedman Paper: Refining Advertising Regulation

David Adam Friedman of Willamette has written Refining Advertising Regulation.  Here's the abstract: Why did the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) aggressively pursue Volkswagen’s claims about “clean-diesel” technology, while ignoring widespread practices like deceptive discount pricing? Why did the FTC offer formal guidance to industry about “native advertising,” but only casual guidance to consumers about widely-used, […]

Article: How Legal Rules Can Improve Search Behavior & Decision Quality

Brigitta Lurger of Graz and four co-authors have written Consumer Decisions Under High Information Load: How Can Legal Rules Improve Search Behavior and Decision Quality?.  Here's the abstract: EU consumer protection legislation is designed to enable consumers to make "good" contract decisions in the market place. This legislation heavily relies on the model of rational […]

Citron Article on State AGs and Privacy Law Development

Danielle Keats Citron of Maryland, Yale and Stanford has written Privacy Enforcement Pioneers: The Role of State Attorneys General in the Development of Privacy Law, Forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review,   Here's the abstract: Accounts of privacy law have focused on legislation, federal agencies, and the self-regulation of privacy professionals. Crucial agents of regulatory […]

Paper on Profiling and Targeting Consumers in the Internet of Things – A New Challenge for Consumer Law

Natali Helberger of the University of Amsterdam – Institute for Information Law has written Profiling and Targeting Consumers in the Internet of Things – A New Challenge for Consumer Law. Here is the abstract: What does the shift from buying ‘things’ to buying ‘smart things’ imlies for consumers and consumer protection law and policy? The […]

Brescia on the Sharing Economy

Raymond H. Brescia of Albany has written Regulating the Sharing Economy: New and Old Insights into an Oversight Regime for the Peer-to-Peer Economy, 95 Nebraska Law Review  2016 (Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: The significant expansion of new, peer-to-peer businesses, supercharged by the internet and mobile technologies, has led to an exploration of the proper […]

Hoffman Study: How Different Consumer Cohorts View Online Contracting Differently

David A. Hoffman of Temple has written From Promise to Form: How Contracting Online Changes Consumers.  Here is the abstract: I hypothesize that different experiences with online contracting have led some consumers to see contracts — both online and offline — in distinctive ways. Experimenting on a large, nationally representative, sample, this paper provides evidence […]

Campbell Lecture on Paternalistic Intervention in Consumer Financial Affairs

John Y. Campbell of Harvard's Department of Economics has written Restoring Rational Choice: The Challenge of Consumer Financial Regulation.  Here is the abstract:  This lecture considers the case for consumer financial regulation in an environment where many households lack the knowledge to manage their financial affairs effectively. The lecture argues that financial ignorance is pervasive […]

Study of Privacy Policy Vagueness

Joel R. Reidenberg of Fordham, Jaspreet Bhatia and Travis Breaux, both of Carnegie Mellon,and Thomas B. Norton also of Fordham have written Automated Comparisons of Ambiguity in Privacy Policies and the Impact of Regulation. Here is the abstract: Website privacy policies often contain ambiguous language that undermines the purpose and value of privacy notices for […]

Josuhua Wright & John Yun on the FTC’s Unfairness Power and Digital Platforms

Former FTC Commissioner Joshua D. Wright, now of George Mason,  and John M. Yun of the FTC have written Stop Chug-a-Lug-a-Lugin 5 Miles an Hour on Your International Harvester: How Modern Economics Brings the FTC's Unfairness Analysis Up to Speed with Digital Platforms, 6 George Washington Law Review,  2130 (2015). Here is the abstract: In this […]

Ben-Shahar & Chilton Study Finds Simplifying Privacy Disclosures Doesn’t Help

Omri Ben-Shahar and Adam S. Chilton both of Chicago have written Simplification of Privacy Disclosures: An Experimental Test. Here's the abstract: Simplification of disclosures is widely regarded as an important goal and is increasingly mandated by regulations in a variety of areas of the law. In privacy law, simplification of disclosures is near universally supported. […]