The Democratic staff of the House Financial Services Committee issued a report yesterday on compliance with state payday lending laws. Entitled “Skirting the Law: Five Tactics Payday Lenders Use to Evade State Consumer Protection Laws,” the report finds that state-level regulation of the payday lending industry is insufficient and concludes that strong federal consumer protections […]
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Philadelphia becomes the first major city to pass a tax on sugary drinks.
I blogged a couple of weeks ago about a "country hip-hop" musician who had part of his lawsuit against Facebook, for hosting pages that denigrate him, dismissed under California's anti-SLAPP law but managed to hang onto his claims that Facebook had violated his right of publicity by hosting such pages while serving ads on them. […]
The New York Times applauds the decision and explains why it benefits consumers, here. Politico adds some political perspective, here. The Washington Post explains the net neutrality rule and why it matters, here. Wired reports that AT&T plans to seek Supreme Court review and that congressional Republicans want to block the rule, here.
CNBC reports: Whole Foods was slapped with a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration earlier this month after the FDA found "serious violations" of federal regulations during an inspection of the company's food preparation facility in Massachusetts. FDA inspectors reportedly found various food products, including mushroom quesadillas, chives, beets and couscous that were […]
by Paul Alan Levy In a comment posted yesterday to my blog post last week about an amicus brief that Public Citizen and EFF filed in the First Circuit, Ripoff Report founder Ed Magedson announced that his company is going to modify the browsewrap agreement that it has been imposing on users, whereby the company […]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit just released an opinion rejecting a challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2015 decision to impose network neutrality rules, which seek to prevent internet service providers from blocking or favoring websites. In short, the background of the case is this: The Commission … promulgated the order […]
The Federal Trade Commission has settled with defendants American Handicapped Inc., American Handicapped and Disadvantaged Workers Inc., and their owner charges that the defendants tricked consumers into buying household products on the false pretext that the proceeds would go to help disabled people. According to the FTC’s complaint, the defendants’ telemarketers cold-called consumers to sell […]
Bloomberg reports: Online financing platforms aimed at small businesses are drawing new scrutiny from states concerned the largely unregulated industry could cause a new predatory lending crisis. California is soliciting data from the largest lenders as state officials eye a non-bank lending statute as a possible enforcement and regulatory tool. Illinois is considering legislation that […]
The Washington Post reports: Federal education officials are deciding whether to shut down the nation’s biggest accreditor of for-profit colleges over allegations that it overlooked deception by some of its schools. The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools is meant to be a watchdog for hundreds of for-profit schools, wielding the stamp of approval […]