by Jeff Sovern The FTC is a terrific agency that has done a lot of good for consumers. Every FTC staffer I've ever met has impressed me as dedicated to consumer welfare, hard-working, and talented. And yet, the FTC could do more if it weren't hamstrung by precisely the limits the financial industry and the […]
Category Archives: Federal Trade Commission
Here. Doroshow is at New York Law School's Center for Justice and Democracy. Excerpt: The FTC, whose tag line is “Protecting America’s Consumers,” has decided to side with the corporate lawyers and executives at General Motors and two used car chains, agreeing to a legal settlement regarding the sale of cars under safety recall. Specifically, […]
A continuing issue in consumer protection is that disclosures may convey the required information, but consumers may ignore them, so they have no impact. The FTC held a workshop last week to look at how to test disclosures to make them more effective. Ad Law Access has posted a report on the Workshop, Beyond “Clear […]
Chris Hoofnagle has posted online Chapter 6, titled Online Privacy, from his excellent book, Federal Trade Commission Privacy Law and Policy (I'm still making my way as my schedule permits through the book and hope to post a review someday). Here's the abstract: This is the full text of Chapter 6 (Online Privacy) from Federal Trade […]
by Jeff Sovern In his new book, Federal Trade Commission Privacy Law and Policy, Chris Hoofnagle writes (at page 137) about a 1971 petition by five GW law students to the FTC. The students urged the Commission to bar companies from making unsubstantiated claims and to require that chemically identical products be labeled to indicate […]
Chris Jay Hoofnagle of Berkeley has written Privacy and Security Through the Lens of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Economics. Here's the abstract: At the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), all privacy and security matters are assigned to a consumer protection economist from the agency’s Bureau of Economics (BE). The BE is an important yet […]
Chris Jay Hoofnagle, FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION: PRIVACY LAW AND POLICY (2016) Reviewed by Dee Pridgen Chris Hoofnagle has put together an impressive, authoritative and useful treatise on the law of consumer privacy in the U.S. and the role of the Federal Trade Commission. This book is an excellent read for all those interested in consumer […]
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 […]
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 […]
by Jeff Sovern Some auto dealers advertise and sell "certified" used cars. The word "certified" conveys that the car has gone through a process of inspection and that any problems have been remedied. At least, that's how I understand it. Sometimes, however, these certified cars have been recalled for safety defects which have not been repaired. The FTC has reached […]