Category Archives: Federal Trade Commission

What the Vizio Case May Portend About FTC Privacy Enforcement

by Jeff Sovern The FTC, New Jersey AG's Office, and Vizio have agreed to a court order under which Vizio will pay 2.2 million to settle charges that Vizio recorded and sold information about the viewing practices of consumers watching Vizio TVs without obtaining consumers' consent and without their knowledge.  You can read Leslie Fair's […]

CNN: Trump pledges to ‘do a big number’ on Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform

by Jeff Sovern Here.  Trump criticized Dodd-Frank on the campaign trail, but as far as I know still hasn't said very much about which aspects of the statute he would change.  Consequently, it remains unclear what his views of the CFPB are. While he complained about the difficulties small business have in getting loans from […]

NY Times: How to Buy a Used Car in an Age of Widespread Recalls

Here. Excerpt: [L]ast month the Federal Trade Commission made it easier for cars to be billed as “certified,” even if they were under recall and hadn’t been fixed yet. * * * Buyers who wonder how safe it is to drive with a recalled Takata airbag and check the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website […]

The Atlantic on How the GOP Plans to Block Regulations, Including Consumer Protection Regs

by Jeff Sovern The article is called The Quiet GOP Campaign Against Government Regulation.  The whole piece is worth reading, but here's an excerpt: The shorter and easier-to-read of the two bills is called the “Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2017,” or REINS Act, which passed the House in early […]

FTC Chair Edith Ramirez Announces Departure, Leaving Three Seats Vacant

WaPo has the story here. excerpt: Ramirez's impending departure from the FTC is likely to leave the agency shorthanded with three vacancies on the five-member panel. With one Republican and one Democrat remaining, the FTC will likely be deadlocked in a partisan tie until the Trump administration can fill the other vacancies, which could take months. […]

How the FTC Demonstrates Why We Need a Strong, Independent, Pro-Consumer CFPB

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 […]

Joanne Doroshow’s HuffPo Op-ed: FTC May Make it Easier for Used Car Dealers to Sell Recalled Cars

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, […]

Report on FTC Workshop on Testing to Make Disclosures More Effective

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 […]