by Paul Alan Levy Last month I criticized a Butte, Montana newspaper which, having decided to switch on January 1, 2016, from a commenting system that allowed users to choose pseudonyms to one that will demand the publishing of real names, announced that the “real names” of those who had previously commented using pseudonyms would […]

By unanimous consent, the Senate yesterday passed a law to ban non-disparagement clauses in consumer contracts. Public Citizen supports the Consumer Review Freedom Act, which addresses a problem we've litigated and advocated against on many occasions, including most notably in the KlearGear case. Here's a discussion of the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the bill […]

Over the past few years, we've seen sweeping arbitration decisions from the Court like Concepcion and Italian Colors making it much harder for plaintiffs to avoid forced arbitration and get their day in court. By contrast, this week's arbitration case (a loss for the consumer, as is typical) is of far less consequence. DirecTV v. Imburgia was about […]

The New York Times and Washington Post both discuss how a little-noticed provision in a federal spending bill last year is creating problems for the implementation of the ACA. (According to the Times, it has "has tangled up the Obama administration, sent tremors through health insurance markets and rattled confidence in the durability of President Obama’s […]

Today the Supreme Court granted cert. in Sheriff v. Gillie, an FDCPA case out of the Sixth Circuit. As described by the court of appeals: Plaintiffs brought this action under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”), 15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq., alleging that Defendants utilized a deceptive, misleading, or false representation or means […]

A project of the Change to Win labor federation called "Calling Out T-Mobile," is doing just that in a new report and website. The focus, as explained on the site: The Un-Carrier marketing platform makes two central claims that are misleading: T-Mobile claims to offer service plans with “No Annual Contract”. T-Mobile say it pays consumers’ […]

Amidst the debate over the TPP, the WTO this week showed us how much power trade deals can confer on international bodies to interfere with national legislation. Specifically, the WTO has ruled that Canada and Mexico can impose $1 billion worth of tariffs because of a U.S. regulation, in place since 2009, requiring country-of-origin labels (COOL) […]

The Federal Trade Commission has announced that Wyndham Hotels and Resorts has agreed to settle FTC charges that the company’s security practices unfairly exposed the payment card information of hundreds of thousands of consumers to hackers in three separate data breaches. Under the terms of the settlement, the company will establish a comprehensive information security […]

NPR reports: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has imposed a $70 million civil fine on the parent company of Chrysler for failing to report safety data. A statement from the agency said Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, or FCA, has acknowledged that it failed to turn in "early warning report" data about accidents, warranty claims and […]