Will the Federal Trade Commission bring back its “click to cancel” rule? The FTC on Wednesday announced an “advance notice of proposed rulemaking,” inviting public feedback on whether to amend its regulation for automatic subscriptions (negative option rule). In October 2024, after years of observing rampant abuse of subscription traps harming consumers, the FTC finalized […]
Category Archives: Unfair & Deceptive Acts & Practices (UDAP), including Discrimination
New York’s General Business Law section 399-zzz, enacted in 2011, prohibits businesses from charging extra fees to pay by mail or to receive a billing statement — but does not prohibit such businesses from ” offering consumers a credit or other incentive to elect a specific payment or billing option.” Customers of TD Bank sued […]
Matthew Gaske of Indiana University – Kelley School of Business has written State Attorneys General and Federalist Technology Regulation. Here’s the abstract: Consumers are adopting novel technologies at increasing rates. These technologies’ versatility requires policymakers to weigh regulatory tradeoffs of increasing complexity. New laws addressing consumer-technology risks are slow to emerge, incoherent, or avoidable. Meanwhile, federal […]
Here. Excerpt: The F.T.C.’s chairman, Andrew Ferguson, appears to be testing a novel theory: that editorial judgment can be regulated as a deceptive trade practice. In this view, a news organization’s slogan — such as “fair and balanced” or “without fear or favor” — is no longer a statement of mission but a marketing claim […]
Here, on Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Finance Monitor podcast.
In Oliver v. Navy Federal Credit Union, decided today, the Fourth Circuit clarified both the procedure and substantive standards that govern when defendants ask a court to deny class certification before discovery. Oliver was a putative class action challenging Navy Federal’s underwriting process for loan applicants as racially discriminatory. Navy Federal moved to dismiss under Rule […]
In October, I posted about the Fifth Circuit’s curious grant of rehearing en banc in a challenge to the Department of Transportation’s 2024 Rule requiring airlines to disclose ancillary fees. The panel had left a stay of the rule in place, directing the agency to address certain notice and comment issues on remand–but at the […]
A few weeks ago, I shared that the Department of Education had planned to, for the first time since 2020, resume wage garnishments and other involuntary collections on federal student loans. Today, though, the Department announced a reversal of course, stating it would delay collections efforts while it “implement[s] major student loan repayment reforms under […]
The Federal Trade Commission this week sued an “online question-and-answer service” and its CEO in a California federal court alleging that they deceived people into a monthly subscription service. According to the FTC, people would come across the service, Just Answer LLC, in an online search, and then the company would lead them to believe […]
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act bars discrimination in consumer lending on the basis of sex but does not explicitly apply to sexual orientation or gender identity, as some state laws do. Back in 2021, after the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County interpreting Title VII, the employment discrimination statute, to forbid such discrimination, […]