Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

Advising 101 For The Growing Field Of Social Media Influencers, Stasia Skalbania

Washington Law Review

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) protects consumers from unfair and deceptive business practices. In 2019, the FTC released the “Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers Guide” (herein referred to as the “2019 Influencer Guide”). The 2019 Influencer Guide outlines advertisers’ and endorsers’ specific responsibilities relating to the advertising and marketing of products on social media platforms. Despite the extensive information provided within the 2019 Influencer Guide, there is still great confusion regarding endorsement disclosure requirements, and many brands and influencers are not in compliance with FTC recommendations. This Comment provides guidance to brands and social media influencers on how to …

Racial Capitalism In The Civil Courts, Lauren Sudeall, Tonya L. Brito, Kathryn A. Sabbeth, Jessica K. Steinberg

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Essay explores how civil courts function as sites of racial capitalism. The racial capitalism conceptual framework posits that capitalism requires racial inequality and relies on racialized systems of expropriation to produce capital. While often associated with traditional economic systems, racial capitalism applies equally to nonmarket settings, including civil courts.

The lens of racial capitalism enriches access to justice scholarship by explaining how and why state civil courts subordinate racialized groups and individuals. Civil cases are often framed as voluntary disputes among private parties, yet many racially and economically marginalized litigants enter the civil legal system involuntarily, and the state …

Discrimination On Wheels: How Big Data Uses License Plate Surveillance To Put The Brakes On Disadvantaged Drivers, Nicole K. Mcconlogue

Law Faculty Scholarship

As scholarly discourse increasingly raises concerns about the negative societal effects of “fintech,” “dirty data,” and “technochauvinism,” a growing technology provides an instructive illustration of all three of these problems. Surveillance software companies are using automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology to develop predictive analytical tools. In turn, software companies market those tools to auto financers and insurers as a risk assessment input to evaluate consumers seeking to buy a car. Proponents of this technology might argue that more information about consumer travel habits will result in more accurate and individualized risk predictions, potentially increasing vehicle ownership among marginalized groups. …

Biometric Data Collection And Big Tech: Imposing Ethical Constraints On Entities That Harvest Biometric Data, Ian Ducey

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

Amazon can tell when you are sleeping, when you are awake, and when you are stressed, and they can do it before you may recognize it yourself. At least it will be able to if you decide to buy their newest wearable health monitoring technology. In 2020, Amazon joined Google’s Fitbit and Apple’s Apple Watch in the wearable technology market with the Amazon Halo. A wristband outfitted with a variety of sensors designed to help manage and record health identifiers, including body fat percentage, step tracking, sleep tracking, and now emotional responses. Many companies have begun developing and exploring the …

Small Business Cybersecurity: A Loophole To Consumer Data, Matthew R. Espinosa

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Small businesses and small minority owned businesses are vital to our nation’s economy; therefore legislation, regulation, and policy has been created in order to assist them in overcoming their economic stability issues and ensure they continue to serve the communities that rely on them. However, there is not a focus on regulating nor assisting small businesses to ensure their cybersecurity standards are up to par despite them increasingly becoming a victim of cyberattacks that yield high consequences. The external oversight and assistance is necessary for small businesses due to their lack of knowledge in implementing effective cybersecurity policies, the fiscal …

All Of The Products, None Of The Liability: Examining The Supreme Court Of Ohio's Decision In Stiner V. Amazon.Com, Inc., Danny O'Connor

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Shifting Burdens At The Fringe, Vijay Raghavan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Broken Beef Cattle Industry: Cool, Covid And Cattletrace, Hayden L. Ballard

Journal of Food Law & Policy

While the Kansas City Stockyards themselves are gone, just like in the early 20th Century, a beef monopoly has once again found its way into the industry, and a way around the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 and is again suffocating the industry. While at the time of the act’s passage in 1921 five companies controlled the market, today the market is even more consolidated in the “Big Four,” as the four biggest meat packing companies in America are commonly known (Cargill, Tyson, JBS and National Beef/Marfrig), and are again arguably stifling the free-market. If Americans do not act …

Consumer Primacy: A Dynamic Model Of Corporate Governance For Consumer- Centric Businesses, Sung Eun (Summer) Kim

Utah Law Review

This Article challenges the conventional view that corporate law should principally strive to increase shareholder value, arguing that rather, corporate law should principally strive to ensure consumer satisfaction in consumer-centric businesses. Consumer-centric businesses are defined here as businesses in which consumers occupy a central role in the creation and distribution of corporate value and risks. For example, a consumer of a crowdfunded product does not take shares, but provides capital and product-design feedback during the early and critical stages of the product’s development. A consumer using a ridesharing app makes significant contributions to building the platform and provides real-time ratings …

Consumer Law As An Axis Of Economic Inequality, Daniel Markovits, Barak D. Richman, Rory Van Loo

Faculty Scholarship

In the standard paradigm of consumer law, a voluntary transaction is supposed to be welfare enhancing for each of the parties involved. We challenge this foundational presumption and ask to what extent many common consumer contracts are in fact extractive despite resulting from voluntary exchanges. With inequality growing throughout the world, to a degree that threatens the stability of both the economies and governments of even the wealthiest nations, we ask this fundamental question in an effort to identify root causes of inequality and to mark some guideposts for the articles that follow. Taken together, our speculations suggest that the …

Implications Of Non-Exclusive Choice Of Forum Clauses In Determining The Competent Dispute Resolution Forum In Indonesia, Alvansa Vickya, Tiurma M.P. Allagan

Indonesia Law Review

This research aims to analyze the implications of a non-exclusive choice of forum clause in determining the competent dispute resolution forum in Indonesia based on theories related to Private International Law, International Contract Law, and International Civil Procedure Law. Based on the results of this research, the implications of the non-exclusive choice of forum clause in determining the competent dispute resolution forum in Indonesia have not been fully regulated by Indonesian laws and regulations. This can be seen from the use of the doctrines of forum non conveniens, lis pendens, and res judicata, the three of which are still not …

Autonomous Vehicle Regulation & Trust: The Impact Of Failures To Comply With Standards, William H. Widen, Phillip Koopman

Articles

The autonomous vehicle (AV) industry works very hard to create public trust in both AV technology and its developers. Building trust is part of a strategy to permit the industry itself to manage the testing and deployment of AV technology without regulatory interference. This article explains how industry actions to promote trust (both individually and collectively) have created concerns rather than comfort with this emerging technology. The article suggests how the industry might change its current approach to law and regulation from an adversarial posture to a more cooperative one in which a space is created for government regulation consistent …

Sharing Your Home With Strangers: Common-Interest Ownership And Financing Options, Debra Bechtel, Crystal Liu, Ernira Mehmetaj, David Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

As the affordable housing crisis in the U.S. escalates, housing policy analysts and advocates are re-examining, modifying, and combining ways of decreasing the costs of homeownership through shared ownership and shared financing while also, in some instances, preserving long-term affordability. This Article will touch upon the vast array of models and take a deep dive into one of them, the relatively new shared equity financing model. That model holds some promise and a lot of peril for homeowners.

The Rise Of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, Their Effects, And How We Can Stop Their Growth, Andrea Prisco

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Dramatic changes in the agricultural industry over the last century have led to the rise of concentrated animal feeding operations– industrial facilities that raise a large number of animals in confined spaces. Animals raised in these facilities suffer from poor quality of life and abuse. For humans, these facilities have had adverse effects on the environment and public health, but they are also associated with high productivity and low food costs. This Comment analyzes the effects of concentrated animal feeding operations on animal well-being, the environment, and public health. This Comment also analyzes current federal legislation that helps combat the …

Detoxing From Clean Claims: Bridging The Gap Between "Clean" And "Dirty" Beauty, Alecsandra Dragus

William & Mary Business Law Review

The clean beauty industry has gained increasing popularity in the last couple of years. This has spurred the development of many brands and impacted what consumers look for in their products. This Note engages in the existing conversation in the beauty industry pertaining to "clean" products by showing that the lack of interference from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to set definitional criteria for what constitute ''clean" products has resulted in an increase in the commercialization of health-conscious consumer beliefs based on ambiguous and misleading information. These consumers are stuck in a loop …

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 …

Portraits Of Bankruptcy Filers, Pamela Foohey, Robert M. Lawless, Deborah Thorne

Articles

One in ten adult Americans has turned to the consumer bankruptcy system for help. For almost forty years, the only systematic data collection about the people who file bankruptcy has come from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project (CBP), for which we serve as co-principal investigators. In this Article, we use CBP data from 2013 to 2019 to describe who is using the bankruptcy system, providing the first comprehensive overview of bankruptcy filers in thirty years. We use principal component analysis to leverage these data to identify distinct groups of people who file bankruptcy. This technique allows us to situate the distinctions …

Steering Loan Modifications Post-Pandemic, Pamela Foohey, Dalié Jiménez, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

As part of federal and state relief programs created during the COVID-19 pandemic, many American households received pauses on their largest debts, particularly on mortgages and student loans. Others may have come to agreements with their lenders, likewise pausing or altering payment on other debts, such as auto loans and credit cards. This relief allowed households to allocate their savings and income to necessary expenses, like groceries, utilities, and medicine. But forbearance does not equal forgiveness. At the end of the various relief periods and moratoria, people will have to resume paying all their debts, the amounts of which may …

Benign Language On Letters From Debt Collectors And Avoiding Violations Of The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Sebastian West

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regulating Social Media In The Global South, Zahra Takhshid

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, the disinformation crisis has made regulating social media platforms a necessity. The consequences of disinformation campaigns are not only limited to election interferences or political debates; they have also included fatal consequences. In response, however, scholars in the United States have generally focused on regulating social media companies in the United States, without paying much attention to these companies’ global impact, particularly in the Global South. Lost in the quest to fight disinformation is addressing the social media companies’ neglect of consumer rights in the Global South.

Countries in the Global North, such as the United States, …

The New Bailments, Danielle D’Onfro

Washington Law Review

The rise of cloud computing has dramatically changed how consumers and firms store their belongings. Property that owners once managed directly now exists primarily on infrastructure maintained by intermediaries. Consumers entrust their photos to Apple instead of scrapbooks; businesses put their documents on Amazon’s servers instead of in file cabinets; seemingly everything runs in the cloud. Were these belongings tangible, the relationship between owner and intermediary would be governed by the common-law doctrine of bailment. Bailments are mandatory relationships formed when one party entrusts their property to another. Within this relationship, the bailees owe the bailors a duty of care …

Assessment Of Consumer Protection Act 2019 To Support Tobacco Control In India, Ashok R. Patil

Articles

The use of tobacco products has been clearly established to cause significant medical and economic harm. While specific tobacco control legislation has been enacted in the form of the COTPA 2003, it is important to examine if other legislations can be utilised for regulation of tobacco consumption. One such legislation is the Consumer Protection Act 2019, which significantly expands the rights of consumers and protection given to them in terms of product safety and product quality. Accordingly, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of the Consumer Protection Act 2019 and the scope of utilising this legislation and the jurisprudence on …

Federally Mandated Online Sales Tax: A Logistical Solution For The Future Of E-Commerce, Daniel O'Connor

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Economic Structural Transformation And Litigation: Evidence From Chinese Provinces, To Economic Change And Restructuring, Doug Bujakowski, Joan Schmit

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The "Business Interruption" Insurance Coverage Conundrum: Covid-19 Presents A Challenge, Paul E. Traynor

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Misalighned Incentives In Markets: Envisioning Finance That Benefits All Of Society, Dr. Ryan Clements

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Eaters, Powerless By Design, Margot J. Pollans

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Food law, including traditional food safety regulation, antihunger programs, and food system worker protections, has received increased attention in recent years as a distinct field of study. Bringing together these disparate areas of law under a single lens provides an opportunity to understand the role of law in shaping what we eat (what food is produced and where it is distributed), how much we eat, and how we think about food. The food system is rife with problems--endemic hunger, worker exploitation, massive environmental externalities, and diet-related disease. Looked at in a piecemeal fashion, elements of food law appear responsive to …

Where’S The Beef, Turkey, Butter, Cheese, Or Other Animal Ingredient?, Virginia C. Thomas

Library Scholarly Publications

The author discusses current challenges presented by federal and state labeling laws and standards pertaining to plant-based meat alternative food products.

Eaters, Powerless By Design, Margot J. Pollans

Michigan Law Review

Food law, including traditional food safety regulation, antihunger programs, and food system worker protections, has received increased attention in recent years as a distinct field of study. Bringing together these disparate areas of law under a single lens provides an opportunity to understand the role of law in shaping what we eat (what food is produced and where it is distributed), how much we eat, and how we think about food. The food system is rife with problems— endemic hunger, worker exploitation, massive environmental externalities, and diet-related disease. Looked at in a piecemeal fashion, elements of food law appear responsive …

Monsanto: Creator Of Cancer Liability

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.