The Washington Post offers this encouraging story from the Pacific Northwest, where a Seattle suburb's decision to raise the minimum wage has not caused the disruption that opponents predicted. And NPR's Planet Money has this story about a shopping mall on the boundary between two California cities with different wage laws; businesses and workers have […]
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In more FTC news, the agency announced yesterday that online review site Yelp, Inc., and mobile app developer TinyCo, Inc., agreed to settle separate FTC charges "that they improperly collected children’s information in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, Rule." Under the settlements, Yelp will pay a $450,000 civil penalty, and […]
From the FTC's press release: At the Federal Trade Commission’s request, a U.S. district court in Missouri has temporarily halted an online payday lending scheme that allegedly bilked consumers out of tens of millions of dollars by trapping them into loans they never authorized and then using the supposed “loans” as a pretext to take […]
The CFPB announced yesterday that it is proposing to oversee larger non-bank auto finance companies, which would be a first at the federal level. At the same time, the CFPB released a report detailing auto-lending discrimination at banks. "The report highlights that the Bureau’s supervisory actions against banks will result in about $56 million in […]
Following in the footsteps of California's new law barring the use of non-disparagement clauses and providing a private cause of action for seeking or threatening to enforce one, today Reps. Eric Swalwell and Brad Sherman (both of California) introduced in Congress the "Consumer Review Freedom Act" that would render non-disparagement clauses unenforceable nationwide. The text […]
As we have discussed, last week California passed a law barring the use of non-disparagement clauses and providing a private cause of action for seeking or threatening to enforce one, or for "otherwise penaliz[ing] a consumer for making any statement protected under this section" (that is, a statement "regarding the seller or lessor or its […]
For years now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has authorized auto manufacturers to recall defective vehicles on a regional (rather than a national) basis. The idea, NHTSA maintains, is that some vehicle defects only matter regionally — say, in places that are cold or hot, for defects that supposedly are related to cold-weather […]
…asks this Harvard Magazine review of The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online, by Judith Donath. The review explains: One of [Donath's] goals is to help readers recognize possibilities between real names and online anonymity. She believes pseudonyms could provide more information, not less. “We can simultaneously have a rich impression of others and privacy,” […]
by Ted Mermin (Executive Director, Public Good Law Center), guest blogger As Scott Michelman's earlier post explained, the new California law barring nondisparagement clauses in consumer contracts promises to restrain a pernicious practice before it spreads widely. That in itself is a significant victory well worth celebrating. But here's hoping (and suggesting) that the new law also serve as […]
Watch here, laugh and enjoy. (And learn.) (Note to sensitive readers: in addition to some profanity, there's a rather detailed — but hilarious — digression regarding President Lyndon Johnson's difficulty fitting his private parts into his pants.) (Note to history buffs: this is worth watching for the LBJ bit alone.)