Marketers of green coffee bean extract weight-loss supplements, male enhancement products, and skin care products will forfeit assets totaling approximately $9.2 million, and have already turned over a Ferrari to settle the Federal Trade Commission’s court action brought against them in October 2014. The proposed stipulated final order bans individual defendants Danelle Miller and Jason […]
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by Paul Alan Levy When I saw the Popehat Signal a few years ago, seeking counsel to help Todd DeShong fend off a lawsuit in federal court in Texas claiming that he defamed Clark Baker on his "HIV Innocence Group Truth blog, which criticizes Baker for profiting through charlatanism (Baker claims that HIV status is unrelated […]
A sign of things to come, reports the Times: In January, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced grants totaling $1 billion in 13 states to help communities adapt to climate change, by building stronger levees, dams and drainage systems. One of those grants, $48 million for Isle de Jean Charles [in southern Louisiana], […]
That question was the subject of a recent class action lawsuit on behalf of the drivers in California and Massachusetts. Now Uber will pay $100 million to settle the case and will allow the drivers to collect tips, but will keep workers classified as contractors under the deal. The classification issue seems likely to arise […]
A piece in Fivethirtyeight last week highlights the challenges occupational licensing laws pose for younger job-seekers. These are rules, usually at the state or local level, that require workers to get a government-issued license to hold certain jobs. That makes sense for doctors and accountants, but the requirements are increasingly spreading to barbers, cosmetologists and even […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced yesterday the "Payback Playbook"—a set of prototype disclosures that outline a path to affordable payments for borrowers trying to avoid student debt distress. The CFPB explained that Payback Playbook provides borrowers with personalized information about their repayment options from loan servicers so they can secure a monthly payment they […]
A thoughtful article in the New York Times Magazine this week posits that TV has largely shifted from portraying working class and middle class struggles (from mid-century to the early 90s) to shows largely focused on hanging out and that exist in a classless vacuum (for the past twenty years). As a result, blue collar workers […]
A lot is going on in yesterday's decision in FTC v. Amazon, 2016 WL 1643973 (W.D. Wash. Apr. 26, 2016) — some excellent and some troubling. First, the good news. A Seattle district court held that Amazon engaged in unfair or deceptive practices when it embedded within its apps options to take actions that cost real […]
Check out this fascinating report in Wired last week, which explains how Cornell Tech researchers cracked the code to shortened URLs from Microsoft and Google and as a result were about to figure out personal information about specific individuals: "By guessing at shortened URLs until they found working ones, the researchers say that they could have […]
A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a link between exposure to e-cigarette advertisements and the use of e-cigarettes by middle and high school students. The study is the first to assess the link between exposure to e-cigarette advertising and current e-cigarette use, and it concludes that efforts to reduce […]