Category Archives: Federal Trade Commission

The FTC’s busy week

The Federal Trade Commission has been busy the past few days: FTC Finalizes Order Requiring Credit Karma to Pay $3 Million and Halt Deceptive ‘Pre-Approved’ Claims (Jan. 23, 2023) FTC Order Requires HomeAdvisor to Pay Up To $7.2 Million and Stop Deceptively Marketing its Leads for Home Improvement Projects (Jan. 23, 2023) FTC Order Requires […]

CFPB, FTC Tackle “Dark Patterns,” Recurring Subscription Charges

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission are teaming up to fight “dark patterns” and “negative option” subscription charges. The regulators are concerned about deceptive practices that mislead people into subscriptions or other recurring payments for products and services they do not want.  In a “circular” released this week, the CFPB described […]

A Valediction: Long-time Consumer Advocate Richard Cleland Hangs Up His Spurs

After taking his sweet time to do so, my old and good friend Rich Cleland retired from the FTC at the end of 2022. I first met Rich about 40 years ago, when he ran the great Iowa AG Tom Miller’s Consumer Protection Division and I was working for the late great Texas AG Jim […]

Agencies announce plans for new rulemakings

On Wednesday, the Office of Management and Budget issued the Fall 2022 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. The Unified Agenda lists the regulations that each of the federal agencies are currently planning to work on. Among many other topics, the rules in progress include a Federal Trade Commission rule on children’s online privacy […]

FTC actions in December

The Federal Trade Commission made a few interesting announcements in late December: FTC Orders an End to Illegal Mastercard Business Tactics and Requires it to Stop Blocking Competing Debit Card Payment Networks (Dec. 23) – Mastercard will have to start providing competing networks with customer account information they need to process debit payments, reversing a […]

Paper on the FTC’s power to regulate discriminatory AI

Andrew D. Selbst of UCLA and Solon Barocas of Microsoft Research and Cornell have written Unfair Artificial Intelligence: How FTC Intervention Can Overcome the Limitations of Discrimination Law, 171 University of Pennsylvania Law Review __ (forthcoming). Here is the abstract: The Federal Trade Commission has indicated that it intends to regulate discriminatory AI products and services. […]

FTC Calls for Research Presentations for PrivacyCon 2022

The Federal Trade Commission has issued a call for research presentations on a wide range of privacy and data security topics such as commercial surveillance and automated decision making for its annual PrivacyCon event, which will take place virtually on November 1, 2022. PrivacyCon 2022 will bring together a diverse group of stakeholders to discuss […]

Nielson Paper Asks What Happens If the FTC Becomes a Serious Rulemaker?

Aaron L. Nielson of Brigham Young has written What Happens If the FTC Becomes a Serious Rulemaker? forthcoming in FTC's Rᴜʟᴇᴍᴀᴋɪɴɢ Aᴜᴛʜᴏʀɪᴛʏ (Concurrences 2022). Here's the abstract: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is no one’s idea of a serious rulemaker. To the contrary, the FTC is in many respects a law enforcement agency that operates […]

David Dayen’s profile of Rohit Chopra in The American Prospect: “Washington’s Best Hope”

Here. Dayen paints Chopra as someone who finds ways to get positive things done through hard work and imaginative use of agency powers. How does the industry react to this? Here is one paragraph: Financial firms didn’t want to see anyone rousing the machinery of the federal government, and they groused about Chopra to anyone and everyone. […]