Public Citizen and Other Organizations Ask Facebook to Disclose Information About Research on Young Users

Public Citizen and 25 other U.S. and international groups concerned with consumer rights and electronic privacy have sent a letter to Facebook asking it to release documents about whether it has collected and analyzed psychological information about its youthful users for marketing purposes. The claim that Facebook had engaged in such analysis and hyped it to […]

CFPB Prepaid Card Rule Expected to Survive CRA Challenge

Congress could have blocked the rule using the Congressional Review Act, but the deadline for the Senate vote appears to be tomorrow and it looks like the Senate won't get to it, and that even if it did, it might not pass. Bloomberg and American Banker have reports. Here's an excerpt from the American Banker story: […]

Can New York Publish President Trump’s State Tax Returns?

That's the name of this article by law prof Daniel Hemel. Here's the abstract: Breaking from a decades-old norm of presidential tax transparency, Donald Trump has refused to make his federal income tax returns available for public inspection. Congressional leaders have blocked bipartisan legislation that would compel the President to disclose his returns. New York State, however, […]

Schumer Recommends Rohit Chopra for FTC Seat

The HIll has the story here. Chopra has a strong record of protecting consumers, having been the student loan ombudsman at the CFPB, and is currently at the Consumer Federation of America (we quoted him just last week).  The FTC currently has two commissioners in place out of five, one from each major party, and cannot […]

Treasury Department reviewing Dodd-Frank banking rules

The New York Times reports: The U.S. government's review of a landmark 2010 financial reform law will not be complete by early June as originally targeted, and officials will now report findings piece-by-piece, with priority given to banking regulations, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday. President Donald Trump has pledged to do a […]

Susan Dynarski: The Wrong Way to Fix Student Debt

Here, in the Times's Economic View column.  Excerpt: [T]he Trump administration is taking us in the wrong direction, making student loans riskier, more expensive and more burdensome for borrowers. First, the Education Department has weakened accountability for the companies that administer student loans. Second, it has made it more difficult for borrowers to apply for, […]

Marotta-Wurgler Study on Explanations for Privacy Policy Content

Florencia Marotta-Wurgler of NYU has written Self-Regulation and Competition in Privacy Policies, 45 Journal of Legal Studies (2016). Here's the abstract I investigate alternative explanations for the content of privacy policies. Under one model of self-regulation, firms signal their privacy protections to consumers by highlighting compliance with third-party guidelines. However, in a sample of 249 […]

John Oliver explains net neutrality (and tells you how to voice your opinion)

Yesterday on HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Oliver explained net neutrality and encouraged people to urge the FCC not to undo the 2016 rule by visiting www.gofccyourself.com. The site takes a minute or so to open, so be patient if you want to comment. Then click "Express" on the right-hand side of the […]