Last week, I posted about a Western District of Washington decision granting partial summary judgment to the FTC on claims against Amazon relating to the enrollment flow for Amazon Prime subscriptions. A trial began earlier this week on the remaining claims, but, today, the FTC announced a $2.5 billion settlement, including $1.5 billion to be […]
Category Archives: Federal Trade Commission
The Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, or ROSCA, restricts the use of “negative option features”–defined as “an offer or agreement to sell or provide any goods or services, a provision under which the customer’s silence or failure to take an affirmative action to reject goods or services or to cancel the agreement is interpreted by […]
The Federal Trade Commission and seven state attorney general offices announced a lawsuit against Ticketmaster.The FTC along with Virginia, Utah, Florida, Tennessee, Nebraska, Illinois and Colorado, sued Ticketmaster for violating the FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, a law created to stop attempts to automate the process of purchasing tickets en masse […]
The Federal Trade Commission this week sued fitness operators Fitness International LLC and Fitness & Sports Clubs, LLC for using cancellation procedures that made it difficult for consumers to unsubscribe from their monthly memberships. The complaint alleges that the gyms’ practices have incurred hundreds of millions of dollars in unwanted recurring charges. According to the […]
Over at the Consumer Finance Monitor blog, Alan Kaplinsky has questioned the legal authority for President Trump’s Executive Order barring so-called debanking; that is, when banks close bank accounts based on someone’s political views. The blog post argues that to the extent that the EO is based on the CFPB’s and FTC’s unfairness powers, it […]
Here is a discussion of that, on Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast.
The article, Companies use this sneaky pricing trick to overcharge you. One lawmaker wants it banned, is by K.R. Callaway. Excerpt: Last year, the FTC launched an investigation into surveillance pricing, hoping to learn more about how companies were using personal data to change prices. The initial results, released in January, found that retailers were using everything from demographic […]
According to American Banker’s Claire Williams, in an article headlined Republicans gear up for Dodd-Frank rollback, Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks said during a hearing yesterday “that he would be open to the idea of a bipartisan commission at the CFPB.” But President Trump claims the right to fire Democratic commissioners on so-called bipartisan commissions, even […]
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday nullified the Federal Trade Commission’s Click-to-Cancel rule. The rule addressed unfair and deceptive practices in subscriptions (or negative options marketing). The FTC aimed to remove misrepresentations in subscription practices and to generally make canceling subscriptions as easy as it is to sign up for them. In reversing the […]