The Washington Post reports: If you've used or heard of programs such as T-Mobile's Binge On or Music Freedom, then you're familiar with an increasingly common business tactic known as zero rating: the decision by a cellphone carrier to let you stretch your data plan by exempting some services, such as Spotify or Netflix, from your […]
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The Federal Trade Commission announced today: Damian Kutzner, one of the operators of a mortgage relief scheme that bilked millions of dollars from financially distressed homeowners, has agreed to a court order banning him from the debt relief business. The stipulated order resolves the [FTC's] complaint and the contempt charges against Kutzner. It also bans […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week took action against two medical debt collection law firms and their president for falsely representing that letters and calls were from attorneys attempting to collect on a debt when no attorney had yet reviewed the account. The law firms also did not ensure the accuracy of the consumer […]
Here (behind paywall). The article lists various possible industry strategies for blocking the rule: fire CFPB Director Cordray before he can adopt the new rule or after it is adopted and appoint a new director who will rescind it; Congress could preempt the rule from taking effect through the Congressional Review Act or the Financial […]
We have seen a lot of articles and columns lately about the future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its director Richard Cordray. Jeff posted one such piece below. The American Banker yesterday posted this defense of the CFPB by Jeannette Quick, who has served as senior counsel to the Senate Banking Committee and […]
The Washington Post reports: Some of the nation's biggest Internet providers are asking the government to roll back a landmark set of privacy regulations it approved last fall — kicking off an effort by the industry and its allies to dismantle key Internet policies of the Obama years. In a petition filed to federal regulators Monday, a top […]
In an opinion issued yesterday, the Ninth Circuit held that a named plaintiff need not demonstrate, to support a motion for class certification, an "administratively feasible" way of identifying individual class members. In Briseno v. ConAgra, the plaintiffs argued that Wesson Oil's “100% Natural” label was false or misleading because Wesson oils are made from […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has taken enforcement action against Equifax, Inc., TransUnion, and their subsidiaries for deceiving consumers about the usefulness and actual cost of credit scores they sold to consumers. The CFPB found that the companies also lured consumers into costly recurring payments for credit-related products with false promises. The CFPB ordered TransUnion […]
In this column, using the controversy over sky-high insulin prices as his case in point, David Lazarus explains why he thinks replacing the Affordable Care Act with a free-market health care system is "doomed from the start."
by Paul Alan Levy Could Donald Trump, who is notorious for his intolerance of public criticism, and who has promised to "open up the libel laws," evade the First Amendment and section 230 stricture on defamation claims by repackaging them under the rubric of the right of publicity? That is the question presented by an […]