Last month, the FTC updated its Endorsements Guide. The Guide’s definition of clear and conspicuous is particularly interesting. The Guide states: (f) For purposes of this part, “clear and conspicuous” means that a disclosure is difficult to miss ( i.e., easily noticeable) and easily understandable by ordinary consumers. * * * In any communication using […]
Category Archives: Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission has announced a claims process by which consumers who purchased a DreamCloud mattress and were influenced by the company’s claims that the product was made with U.S. materials can apply for a refund. Details are here.
“You don’t need much agricultural expertise to know that every weed is supported by an extensive underground root structure.” What an A+ quote from the Federal Trade Commission’s business blog (Lesley Fair), which gives a visual description of the government’s latest effort to combat pervasive robocalls, this time tackling robocalls’ root structure: third-party lead generators. […]
The Federal Trade Commission is seeking public comments and suggestions on ways it can work more effectively with state attorneys general nationwide to help educate consumers about, and protect them from, potential fraud. The request for public information (RFI) announced today comes at the direction of the FTC Collaboration Act of 2021, which President Biden signed […]
A lot has changed in social media since 2009 (remember when Twitter was good?), but, while “influencers” continue to use social media platforms to sell products and services (often while pretending they are actual product users as opposed to paid salespeople), the FTC had not updated its “endorsement” guidelines since then. Last week, the agency […]
Here. According to Bloomberg,”Holyoak is currently solicitor general with the Utah Attorney General’s Office; Ferguson, a former aide to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, is Virginia’s solicitor general.” The FTC is currently operating with only three of its five commissioners, all Democrats. It is not permitted to have more than three commissioners from the same […]
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Law Scholarship, Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Supreme Court, Unfair & Deceptive Acts & Practices (UDAP), including Discrimination
If the Chamber of Commerce’s claim that discrimination isn’t unfair is correct, why does Student for Fair Admissions have “fair” in its name?
I am working on an article about the CFPB’s determination that discrimination is unfair, a claim that the Chamber of Commerce and banking trade groups are challenging in litigation. Consequently, I am collecting examples in which people used the word “fair” to mean “without discrimination,” or conversely, “unfair” to convey discriminatory conduct. A prominent example […]
The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon.com today for allegedly enrolling consumers in Amazon Prime without their consent and knowingly making it difficult for consumers to cancel their Prime subscriptions. The complaint charges that Amazon used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as “dark patterns” to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically-renewing Prime subscriptions. The […]
The Federal Trade Commission reported this week on the refunds returned to harmed consumers in 2022 from its cases against bad actors that cheated, deceived, defrauded people out of their money. The agency’s press release also contained a sober message: refunds to consumers are dropping due to AMG Capital Management, LLC v. FTC, a 2021 […]
The FTC has announced the filing and resolution of an action against Amazon, arising out of claims that the company wrongfully retained voice recordings and geolocation information of Alexa users, allowed Amazon employees to access voice information, failed to delete children’s information at the request of parents, and retained children’s personal information longer than necessary. […]