In Rodriguez v. Sony Computer, a consumer sued Sony for keeping his personal information that he entered on his PlayStation past the one-year limit provided in the federal Video Privacy Protection Act, and sharing that information between Sony entities. (The Ninth Circuit provides interesting historical context for the VPPA: "The Act was promulgated in 1988 […]
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The Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act, as implemented by a Federal Reserve Board regulation, limits debit card interchange fees in many debit-card transactions. Interchange fees are per-transaction fees imposed by debit-card issuing banks on merchants each time a consumer uses a debit card. The regulation went into effect in October 2011. The idea of the […]
Consumer reporter Michele Singletary has penned this article entitled In New York, good riddance to a questionable hiring practice. Singletary explains that "[f]ederal law allows employment credit checks under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. It requires employers to get an applicant’s or employee’s permission before pulling his or her history. But really, if you want […]
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act mandates that the CFPB conduct a study on the use of pre-dispute arbitration clauses in consumer financial markets. The Dodd-Frank Act specifically prohibits the use of arbitration clauses in mortgage contracts. And it gives the Bureau the power to issue regulations on the use of arbitration […]
The Sept. 7 New Yorker has a thoughtful piece about what college is really worth today from an economic perspective. The piece explores and criticizes various takes from recent literature on the subject. No one's got a wholly satisfactory answer, but it's definitely a question worth considering as the economy changes and tuition costs soar. One […]
A California-based online entertainment network has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it engaged in deceptive advertising by paying “influencers” to post YouTube videos endorsing Microsoft’s Xbox One system and several games. The influencers paid by Machinima, Inc., failed to adequately disclose that they were being paid for their seemingly objective opinions, the […]
The Federal Trade Commission has conducted a survey, following up on a December 2012 survey, examining what information children’s app developers are collecting from users, whom they are sharing it with, and what disclosures they are providing to parents about their practices. The findings will be announced in a series of blog posts. Here is […]
The Hill Reports that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) are pressuring automaker Fiat Chrysler to support a bill that would ban car rental companies from distributing recalled vehicles. Fiat Chrysler was recently fined $105 million by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for allegedly failing to properly notify drivers, car dealerships and […]
…are considered in a story that ran today on NPR's Morning Edition. Colleges that give applying students the option not to submit standardized test scores say they are trying to broaden the pool of applicants and achieve a more diverse student body. But achieving the first goal doesn't necessarily lead to the second, NPR reports, […]
Read this article by Susan Dynarski. Here's an excerpt: Politicians who complain about college costs frequently cite two numbers: one trillion and seven million. Student borrowers owe more than $1 trillion, and seven million borrowers are in default, according to the latest Department of Education data. * * * In many people’s minds, the so-called […]