Law Commons^™

The Consumer Bundle, Shelly Kreiczer-Levy

Washington Law Review

Can property law have a consumer protection purpose? One of the most important consumer law concerns today is the limited control consumers have over the digital assets and software-embedded products they purchase. Current proposals for reform focus on classifying the transaction as either license or sale and rely mostly on contract law and consumer protection regulation with a few calls for restoring ownership rights. This Article argues that property law can protect consumers by establishing a minimum bundle of rights for consumers: the “consumer’s bundle.” Working with property theory and an analysis of property values, this Article explains the importance …

The Economics Of Repair: Fixing Planned Obsolescence By Activating The Right To Repair In India, Dunia Zongwe, Mahantesh Gs, Mamatha R

International Journal on Consumer Law and Practice

This paper examines the lack of a Right to Repair (R2R) legislation in India, particularly in the technology sector, and proposes key principles for an optimal Right to Repair Act based on competition economics and consumer choice. In the current scenario, electronic devices are often designed with planned obsolescence, leading to limited lifespans and encouraging a cycle of consumption and disposal, which negatively impacts the economy, society, and the environment. The global R2R campaign aims to balance societal rights and corporate interests by empowering consumers with the right to repair their devices.

Our research is the first to develop core …

Tiktok Is Not Your Doctor: Reprioritizing Consumer Protection In Pharmaceutical Advertisement Regulation, Nora Klein

Belmont Law Review

This Note will examine DTCA in the context of DTC telemedicine companies, with a focus on the proliferation of such advertisements on social media platforms. Part I discusses the intertwining forces that have led to the prevalence of DTC telehealth advertising on social media. Part II introduces the current regulatory scheme applicable to DTCA, and explains the First Amendment protections afforded to commercial speakers. Part III explores why DTC telemedicine companies are not subject to the regulations applicable to DTCA generally, as well as the implications stemming from the current lack of oversight. Finally, Part IV proposes a solution to …

Legislative Protection For The Insured As A Consumer From Abusive Conditions In The Insurance Contract - A Comparative Study, Akram Daoud, Nour Qanadilo

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

No abstract provided.

Perlindungan Atas Privasi Konsumen Dalam Layanan Reservasi Tiket Online Dari Pt. Kereta Api Indonesia, Aprilia Susanti

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

The significant increase in online activities cannot be separated from the many active internet users who use mobile internet connections to carry out their daily activities, one of which is for the convenience of making ticket reservations at PT. Indonesian Railways (KAI). The purpose of this research is to find out the study of the business law of protecting consumer privacy in the online ticketing service of PT. KAI. Data collection was carried out by means of a literature study of the relationship between laws and regulations in consumer protection and the position of PT. KAI as business actors and …

Exploring Financial Data Protection And Civil Liberties In An Evolved Digital Age, Amanda Lindner

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

There is no comprehensive financial privacy law that can protect consumers from a company’s collection sharing and selling of consumer data. The most recent federal financial privacy law, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”), was enacted by Congress over 20 years ago. Vast technological and financial changes have occurred since 1999, and financial privacy law is due for an upgrade.

As a result, loopholes exist where companies can share financial data without being subject to laws or regulations. Additionally, federal financial privacy related laws provide little to no recourse for consumers to self-remediate with litigation, also known as a private right of …

The Magic Of Fintech? Insights For A Regulatory Agenda From Analyzing Student Loan Complaints Filed With The Cfpb, Matthew Adam Bruckner, Christopher J. Ryan

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This Article looks at consumer complaints about student loan lenders and servicers from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) consumer complaint database. Using a novel dataset drawn from 30,678 complaints filed against 212 student loan companies, we analyze consumers’ subjective views about whether traditional or fintech student loan lenders and servicers provide a better customer experience. Overall, we find that consumers initiate far fewer complaints against fintech lenders than traditional lenders. But we find that fintech lenders are 28 times more likely than traditional lenders to receive complaints for making confusing or misleading advertisements. Our data also show that complaints …

Perlindungan Hukum Bagi Konsumen Terhadap Transaksi Jual Beli Melalui Platform E-Commerce Di Indonesia, Viola Annisa Ikhsan

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

With the entry of internet media in the world of commerce / business, many things have changed, namely the closeness between sellers and buyers in transactions has become increasingly tenuous, because each party does not know each other closely and is known only through internet media. Other obstacles that will arise from transactions via the internet include legal protection for buying and selling transactions made through the E-Commerce platform in Indonesia. In fact, the Consumer Protection Law (UUPK) and the Information and Electronic Transaction Law (UUITE) have been able to provide adequate legal protection for consumers in making transactions via …

Conflict Of Laws In Civil Liability Arising From Defective Products: A Comparative Analytical Study, Dr. Abdullah Fadhel Hamid, Rozhan Omar Khalid

مجلة جامعة الإمارات للبحوث القانونية UAEU LAW JOURNAL

The world in the modern era is witnessing a huge upsurge in the production of goods and services on both the quantitative and qualitative levels, regarding the qualitive of the products, they have developed in two directions: in the first direction, it was able to meet the various human needs and led to the progress of human civilization in the way that humanity lives today, where abundance in the means of luxury living, in the second direction, the products have evolved in a manner that has become a threat to human life and his property. Therefore, products defects led to …

The Property Law Of Tokens, Juliet M. Moringiello, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

Non-fungible tokens—or NFTs, as they are better known—have taken the world by storm. The idea behind an NFT is that by owning a certain thing (specifically, a digital token that is tracked on a blockchain), one can hold property rights in something else (either a real or intangible asset). In the early part of 2021, NFTs for items ranging from a gif of a pop-tart cat with a rainbow tail, to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, to a New York Times column (about NFTs!) have sold for millions of dollars over the internet. Promoters assert that NFTs are the …

Endorsing After Death, Andrew Gilden

William & Mary Law Review

An endorsement is an act of giving one’s public support to a person, product, service, or cause; accordingly, it might seem impossible for someone to make an endorsement after they have died. Nevertheless, posthumous endorsements have become commonplace in social media marketing and have been increasingly embraced by trademark and unfair competition laws. Entities representing Marilyn Monroe, for example, have successfully brought trademark claims for the unauthorized use of Monroe’s name, have successfully brought false endorsement claims under section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, and regularly have promoted products through the Instagram-verified “@marilynmonroe” page. Marilyn Monroe survives today as a …

Conflict Of Laws In Civil Liability Arising From Defective Products: A Comparative Analytical Study, Dr. Abdullah Fadhel Hamid, Rozhan Omar Khalid

UAEU Law Journal

The world in the modern era is witnessing a huge upsurge in the production of goods and services on both the quantitative and qualitative levels, regarding the qualitive of the products, they have developed in two directions: in the first direction, it was able to meet the various human needs and led to the progress of human civilization in the way that humanity lives today, where abundance in the means of luxury living, in the second direction, the products have evolved in a manner that has become a threat to human life and his property. Therefore, products defects led to …

Trademark Law And Consumer Constraints, Laura A. Heymann

Faculty Publications

Trademark law’s focus is on the consumer. Both the trademark literature and the marketing literature, however, tend to assume a consumer with few constraints on economic or cognitive processing resources. For example, scholars have argued that some confusion in the marketplace is not only inevitable but is also an overall positive in that encountering confusion trains consumers to be more resourceful and to learn how to interpret marketing communications more carefully. But not all consumers have the same level of cognitive and economic resources. Disadvantaged consumers—such as those not literate in the English language, those with lower socioeconomic status, and …

Returning To The Statutory Text: Why The Language Of Section 13(B) Requires Courts To Narrowly Construe The Ftc’S Ability To Obtain Injunctive Relief, Christopher Halm

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforces over 70 laws in the areas of antitrust and consumer protection, and one valuable tool to support their enforcement is Section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (“Section 13(b)”). Section 13(b), among other features, grants the FTC authority to seek an injunction in district court against any defendant that is “about to violate” one or more of those laws. For the past three decades, courts have adopted a permissive judicial interpretation of that language, authorizing injunctions against defendants when the allegedly impending violations were only “likely to recur” based on past misconduct. This …

Skating Past Liability Under The Tcpa: Robocalls And Unsolicited Texts And E-Mails, Julissa R. Rachor

Seattle University Law Review

This Note argues that the applicability of Telephone Consumer Protection Act's (TCPA) autodialer provision should be interpreted broadly to include calls made on many types of dialing equipment.

Part I of this Note offers a brief history of the TCPA and autodialers. Part II examines the FCC’s Orders that interpret the TCPA’s autodialer provision, and Part III assesses the varying interpretations of the provision by the circuit courts. Part IV reviews the general facts and procedural history of Duguid, and the Court’s interpretation of the autodialers provision. Last, Part V examines current efforts offered by Congress and potential next …

Trouble With Names: Commercial Speech And A New Approach To Food Product Label Regulation, William Cusack

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

The Supreme Court has recognized First Amendment protection for “commercial speech” since 1975. Commercial speech doctrine seeks to balance advertiser interest in speech, consumer interest in information, and society’s interest that “economic decisions in the aggregate be intelligent and well-informed.” Regulations and compulsory disclosures of commercial speech play a part in ensuring consumers are well-informed. Yet, there continues to be consumer confusion surrounding the commercial speech doctrine’s application to food labeling. Lawmakers continue to pass regulations that are unnecessary or nonsensical. Regulators continue to enforce these regulations, even if the state interest in doing so is minimal or non-existent. There …

Vectors: Immunity In Commercial Aviation, Timothy M. Ravich

William & Mary Business Law Review

COVID-19 nearly wiped out demand for commercial air travel in 2020, driving down passenger traffic by a jaw-dropping 94.3% from the previous year. The airline industry thus understandably lobbied for a government bailout to manage what was nothing short of an existential crisis, with losses exceeding $35 billion. Less worthy of sympathy, however, were the ad hoc policies airlines unhelpfully put in the path of their customers even while securing for themselves $25 billion in payroll grants together with a similar sum in low-interest loans. For example, carriers refused to provide refunds or liquidate travel credits in a straightforward way …

Jangka Waktu Tanggung Jawab Pelaku Usaha Dalam Penyediaan Suku Cadang Berdasarkan Hukum Yang Berlaku Di Indonesia Dan Perbandingannya Dengan Ketentuan Hukum Di Negara Lain, Amelia Saptiana Dewi

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

Consumer protection is an effort to guarantee legal certainty for consumers related to their rights, as well as for business actors related to their obligations to consumers. The Consumer Protection Law was established to improve the dignity and status of consumers and to ensure that businesses actors are responsible for the goods that they sell. Consumer protection law imposes many obligations that must be fulfilled by business actors, one of which is the obligation to provide spare parts as stipulated in Article 25 of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA). Article 25 paragraph (1) of the CPA states that "Business actors …

A New Compact For Sexual Privacy, Danielle Keats Citron

William & Mary Law Review

Intimate life is under constant surveillance. Firms track people’s periods, hot flashes, abortions, sexual assaults, sex toy use, sexual fantasies, and nude photos. Individuals hardly appreciate the extent of the monitoring, and even if they did, little could be done to curtail it. What is big business for firms is a big risk for individuals. Corporate intimate surveillance undermines sexual privacy—the social norms that manage access to, and information about, human bodies, sex, sexuality, gender, and sexual and reproductive health. At stake is sexual autonomy, self-expression, dignity, intimacy, and equality. So are people’s jobs, housing, insurance, and other life opportunities. …

A New Era Of Legal Services: The Elimination Of Unauthorized Practice Of Law Rules To Accompany The Growth Of Legal Software, Julian Moradian

William & Mary Business Law Review

Since the inception of bar associations in the early twentieth century, states have promulgated rules that prohibit unlicensed individuals from providing legal services. These unauthorized practice of law rules have created a monopoly on legal services, which in turn has inflated the price of obtaining legal services to a point where a significant percentage of individuals who need such services are unable to obtain them. Legal software has the potential to disrupt the market for legal services and make such services available to the mass market. However, for innovation and widespread use of legal software to gain traction, these unauthorized …

Coronavirus "Cures" And The Courts, Chad G. Marzen, Michael Conklin

William & Mary Business Law Review

The coronavirus pandemic has drastically affected nearly every aspect of American life. Unfortunately, it has also created an opportunity for those willing to exploit vulnerable citizens by selling fake “cures.” This Article analyzes a lawsuit against televangelist Jim Bakker for doing just that. This Article also calls for increased protection for individuals when a global health pandemic and national emergency have been declared. This Article advocates a novel proposal—the enacting of a federal statute making it a felony for an individual to knowingly sell a fraudulent cure for any disease that has been designated a pandemic by the World Health …

Class Action As Means For Consumer Protection In The French Law And The Extent Of Its Application In The Jordanian Law, Alaa Khasawneh, Maha Khasawneh

UAEU Law Journal

This study examines the class- action as a modern means of protection of consumer rights against unlawful acts of the professionals that lead to injury for a good number of consumers in the same damage or with similar damages issued by the same professional, the victims affected by these damages have the possibility of obtaining total compensation which will be shared among consumers members of the group, this study focus on the issue of the introduction of this action in the legal system of Jordan after a review of the most important models, whether in united States of America legislations …

The Right To Benefit From Big Data As A Public Resource, Mary D. Fan

Articles

The information that we reveal from interactions online and with electronic devices has massive value—for both private profit and public benefit, such as improving health, safety, and even commute times. Who owns the lucrative big data that we generate through the everyday necessity of interacting with technology? Calls for legal regulation regarding how companies use our data have spurred laws and proposals framed by the predominant lens of individual privacy and the right to control and delete data about oneself. By focusing on individual control over droplets of personal data, the major consumer privacy regimes overlook the important question of …

Unwaivable: Public Enforcement Claims And Mandatory Arbitration, Myriam E. Gilles, Gary Friedman

Faculty Articles

This essay, written for a conference on the “pathways and hurdles” that lie ahead in consumer litigation, is the first to examine the implications of California’s recent jurisprudence holding public enforcement claims unwaivable in standard-form contracts of adhesion, and the inevitable clash with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisional law interpreting the Federal Arbitration Act. With its rich history of rebuffing efforts to deprive citizens of public rights through private contract, California provides an ideal laboratory for exploring this escalating conflict.

Report To The Wisconsin Office Of Lawyer Regulation: Analysis Of Grievances Filed In Criminal And Family Matters From 2013-2016, Leslie C. Levin, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

In many states, the highest number of docketed grievances arise out of criminal and family law matters. This report analyzes the 4,898 grievances filed with the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation (“OLR”) in family or criminal law matters during the period from 2013-2016. The OLR provided the data, enabling analysis of the grievances by gender, age, length of time since law school graduation, type of matter, prior experience with diversion or discipline, and geographical location. The data also revealed the frequency of allegations by practice matter, the types of allegations that led to discipline, and the frequency with which lawyers …

Modern Privacy Advocacy: An Approach At War With Privacy Itself?, Justin "Gus" Hurwitz, Jamil N. Jaffer

Pepperdine Law Review

This Article argues that the modern concept of privacy itself, particularly as framed by some of its most ardent advocates today, is fundamentally incoherent. The Article highlights that many common arguments made in support of privacy, while initially seeming to protect this critical value, nonetheless undermine it in the long run. Using both recent and older examples of applying classic privacy advocacy positions to key technological innovations, the authors demonstrate how these positions, while seemingly privacy-enhancing at the time, actually resulted in outcomes that were less beneficial for consumers and citizens, including from a purely privacy-focused perspective. As a result, …

In Conspicuous Terms-- Arbitration Agreements For The Modern Reasonable App User, Michelle Dunbar

William & Mary Business Law Review

Two recent decisions regarding the validity of arbitration agreements in mobile apps have come to opposite conclusions despite utilizing the same legal standard and concerning the same app—Uber. While the Federal Arbitration Act strongly favors the validity and importance of arbitration agreements, it appears that judge’s subjectivity based on common knowledge and understanding of apps is influencing the outcome of cases concerning the validity of these arbitration agreements. To the modern app user, are these terms really inconspicuous? For businesses, this could mean that instead of competing in an already saturated app market by enhancing their design and integrating branding …

Non-Transparent Pbm Cash Flows: Balancing Market Forces Under A Reluctant Legislative Regime, John Mcguinness

William & Mary Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Smart Contracts And The Illusion Of Automated Enforcement, Danielle D'Onfro

Scholarship@WashULaw

This symposium essay explores the barriers to deploying smart contracts in the consumer finance space: the humans themselves, existing consumer protection laws, and the other businesses who have financial contracts with consumers but that cannot deploy smart contracts. These three barriers render perfectly automated enforcement all but impossible. Nevertheless, there may be room for modifiable smart contracts in the consumer financial space although these contracts may be only marginally more efficient than traditional contracts.

Unfair-But-Not-Deceptive: Confronting The Ambiguity In Washington State’S Consumer Protection Act, Emily Beale

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment will argue that Washington state courts must promulgate a new, workable definition of “unfair-but-not-deceptive” under Washington’s Consumer Protection Act. Washington courts have acknowledged that a business act or practice can be unfair but not deceptive, but a simple recognition does not fulfill the liberal intentions of the Consumer Protection Act. By continuously declining to define unfair- but-not-deceptive, Washington courts have left consumers vulnerable and without recourse. This Comment will highlight the approaches developed by the federal government and other state governments on how to confront the ambiguity of unfair-but-not-deceptive and will propose a concrete definition for the term.