New online privacy bill in Congress

In an era in which privacy is under attack on many fronts, it's welcome news whenever members of Congress introduce bills to protect consumer privacy. One such effort is that of Rep. John Duncan of Tennessee, who this week proposed legislation to protect minors against misappropriation of their likenesses for advertising. (See here for further […]

Amy Schmitz Paper on Cramming

Amy Schmitz of Colorado has written Ensuring Remedies to Cure Cramming, 14 Cardozo J. of Conflict Resolution 877 (2013).  Here's the abstract: The unauthorized addition of third party charges to telecommunications bills ("cramming") is a growing problem that has caught the attention of federal regulators and state attorney generals.  This Article therefore discusses the problems […]

Sens. Warren and McCain seek return to Glass-Steagall bank regulation

Senators Warren and McCain have introduced legislation to prevent banks from engaging in certain financial speculation. Its explained in this article by Peter Eavis. Here's a brief excerpt: Senator Elizabeth Warren on Thursday introduced an aggressive piece of legislation that intends to take the financial industry back to an era when there was a strict […]

Wal-Mart vs. living-wage legislation

Wal-Mart has been thinking about putting at least three large stores in the District of Columbia and had spent a chunk of money in the planning phase. Meanwhile, the D.C. City Council has been considering minimum-wage legislation that would require certain large retailers, including Wal-Mart, to pay its workers at least $12.50 per hour (or […]

Fourth Edition of Our Casebook Now Available

by Jeff Sovern This is completely self-serving, but law professor readers of this blog may be interested to learn that the fourth edition of our casebook, Consumer Law, Cases and Materials, Fourth Edition is now available.  As I said in April, our goal was to continue comprehensive coverage of core consumer law subjects (like deceptive advertising, Truth in Lending, […]

Effort to bring back low student-loan rates fails in the Senate

We reported earlier that the interest rate for new federal student loans doubled from 3.4% to 6.8% on July 1 because Congress failed to agree on new legislation. The Senate tried again yesterday, but again failed. A bill sponsored by Senate Democrats would have brought the rate back down to 3.4% for one year, retroactive […]

Do graphic tobacco warnings affect consumers’ perceptions of taste?

My colleagues Greg Beck and Brian Wolfman have blogged here several times about the fight over the FDA's graphic cigarette warnings, which were invalidated by the D.C. Circuit on First Amendment grounds.  Other countries, however, are continuing to require graphic warnings. And now from Australia comes the fascinating news that the new graphic warnings there […]