Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

Re-Imagining Tomorrow: A Technology, Innovation Law, And Ethics Symposium On Addictive Technology And Children, Margaret Chon

Seattle University Law Review

In this Foreword, Professor Margaret Chon introduces Seattle University's Technology, Innovation Law, and Ethics (TILE) program, the 2024 TILE Symposium, and Dr. Gaia Bernstein’s Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies.

Keynote Address: The Movement To Protect Kids From Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.

I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. …

Moral Panic Or Public Health Crisis? Lessons From Drugs And Gambling For “Addictive” Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, Haomin (Kevin) Yan

Seattle University Law Review

Alcohol, automobiles, guns, lottery, loot boxes, meat, music, opioid painkillers, processed foods, prop bets, slot machines, television, tobacco, violent video games. Over the last century each of these has been subject to concerns—some might even say “moral panics”—from parents and policymakers about avoidable harms to kids and adults. In some cases we look back with the benefit of hindsight and dismiss those concerns as naïve or moralistic. In others we look back at them as justified or as having come too late to check an expanding industry before it did unfathomable harm while growing so powerful that it became all …

Responding To Digital Addiction, Ned Snow

Seattle University Law Review

In Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, Professor Gaia Bernstein calls our attention to the growing problem of digital addiction. Digital addiction may sound like something out of a science-fiction novel or something that does not raise the same sort of real-life practical concerns as are present in a physical health crisis or an economic decline. But as Bernstein presents the evidence, we learn that the consequences of digital addiction can be just as harmful as a serious disease or a financial depression. Cognitive development disorders, anxiety, emotional depression, social isolation, and other mental health ills can be debilitating—as much …

The Ai Doppelgänger Dilemma: Cloned Voices In The Music Industry, Elizabeth Shields

Seattle University Law Review

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), there has been an influx of “voice clones”—deep-learning algorithms that create synthetic speech to realistically mimic human voices. Celebrities and, in particular, music artists, have been subjected to the proliferation of AI voice clones on social media platforms like TikTok and streaming platforms such as Spotify. Despite music utilizing AI voice clones having amassed much popularity, this technology can be harmful and highly invasive to musicians whose livelihoods often depend on their distinct voices. While legal scholars have attempted to articulate various rights that could protect a person’s voice, individuals are largely …

Let The Sunshine In: Crafting Constitutional Transparency Regulations For Content Moderation, Caitlin Ring Carlson

Seattle University Law Review

In response to public concern about the impact of social media, legislators in some U.S. states have developed laws to regulate the process of content moderation. Many include mandatory transparency and disclosure requirements, some of which courts have already deemed an unconstitutional infringement on social media platforms’ right to free expression. This article explores the parameters for crafting constitutional social media transparency regulations using existing U.S. media policy and insights from recent legal challenges. The resulting analysis identifies content neutral transparency requirements that mandate the disclosure of purely factual, non-controversial information as those most likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. Specifically, …

This Is Not A Game: The Addictive Allure Of Digital Companions, Nizan Geslevich Packin, Karni Chagal-Feferkorn

Seattle University Law Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents have become an inescapable part of modern childhood, reshaping education, leisure activities, entertainment, and social interaction. From AI-powered tutors that adapt to individual learning styles to emotionally responsive chatbots that simulate human companionship, these systems promise unprecedented personalization, cognitive stimulation, and social support. However, these benefits mask significant risks that remain unregulated and inadequately addressed.

Although adults are also susceptible to forming deep emotional bonds with AI companions—often trusting them as if they possessed genuine understanding and empathy—children are particularly vulnerable. Their misplaced trust can more severely distort social development, weaken critical thinking, and foster unhealthy …

Adopting Permissioned Blockchain Models To Enhance Consumer Protection And Comply With Consumer Protection Laws, Erika Buenrostro

Featured Student Work

Blockchain technology enables decentralized, peer-to-peer transactions and data management, offering transparency while raising data privacy and consumer protection concerns. As the current administration promotes blockchain adoption, including cryptocurrency, more users and businesses will likely integrate the technology. This thesis provides a framework to help businesses adopt blockchain while ensuring compliance with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). To prevent data mishandling and legal penalties, consumers and businesses must stay informed about the risks and evolving state privacy laws.

A CCPA-compliant approach retains blockchain’s benefits through a permissioned model, storing only non-personal (neutral) data on-chain while keeping personal information off-chain in …

Tenant Rights Deserve Consumer Protections: The Case For Overturning State V. Schwab, Robert S. Colton

Washington Law Review

Tenancy is a precarious housing arrangement—tenants do not own their homes yet depend on housing stability as a foundation for engaging in almost all aspects of life. For more than fifty years, Washington law has decreed it a landlord’s responsibility to maintain safe and secure housing for their tenants. As the Washington State Legislature has declared, “[d]ecent housing for the people of Washington state is a most important public concern.” This strong rhetoric remains at odds with State v. Schwab, the sweeping decision issued by the 1985 Washington State Supreme Court removing tenants from the reach of the Consumer …

Efta Coverage Of Modern Consumer Wire Transfers: Consumer Financial Regulation In The Wake Of Loper Bright, Benjamin Gygi

Fordham Law Review

The rise of online banking has led to a proliferation of consumer fraud. Schemes aimed at stealing consumer funds using wire transfers executed through online banking portals have proven particularly devastating to consumers because of a perceived loophole in the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA) that leaves consumers with full liability for funds stolen through wire transfers. Consumer advocacy groups, and most notably the New York Attorney General, have recently argued that this loophole does not really exist; they claim that the EFTA’s text conclusively covers certain parts of modern wire transfer processes initiated through online banking portals. Considering the …

Brief Of Law Scholars As Amicus Curiae In Support Of Appellees And Affirmance, Charles Duan

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

Amici are law professors and scholars who focus their scholarship and teaching on intellectual property law, property law, regulatory law, and health law. They write to address the plaintiff, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (Novartis), contention that the Medicare drug price negotiation program effectuates a taking of personal property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Amici submit this brief to provide the Court with the historical and legal background necessary to understand two issues: first, the constitutionality of government price negotiations and price regulations; second, the federal government’s use of patents. The amici explain how Courts have historically ruled on these questions, …

The Extraordinary Extension Of The Video Privacy Protection Act: Why The “Ordinary Course Of Business” Of An Analog Era Is Anything But Ordinary In The Digital World, Elizabeth Gemdjian

Brooklyn Law Review

In the last dozen years, a wide range of companies—from streaming platforms to consumer goods brands to nonprofits—have been the target of lawsuits under an idiosyncratic, outdated law: the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (VPPA). The VPPA focuses only on consumers’ privacy related to video content; it prohibits a party that has data on a consumer’s video viewing history, along with personally identifiable information about that consumer, from disclosing that information without the consumer’s consent. While the VPPA did not get much attention in court until recently, in the past decade, the volume of VPPA-related claims has exploded. This …

Navigating Turbulent Skies: Class Action Waivers In The Airline Industry And The Quest For Passenger Justice, Macarena Alejandra Bazan Hidalgo

University of Miami Business Law Review

In the ever-evolving skies of the airline industry, airline passengers have continued to benefit from distinctive safeguards, even in the wake of deregulation. As its principal protector, the Department of Transportation has consistently demonstrated its commitment to treating airline customers as a distinct and significant group of consumers. However, these well-intentioned regulations often go unchecked, inadvertently paving the way for airline companies to exploit loopholes, leading to unjust practices. This, in turn, inflicts significant harm upon one of the most crucial consumer segments in the United States. A prime example of this issue is the collaborative effort by airline companies …

Target(Ed) Advertising, Derek E. Bambauer

UF Law Faculty Publications

Targeted advertising—using data about consumers to customize the ads they receive—is deeply controversial. It also creates a regulatory quandary. Targeted ads generate more money than untargeted ones for apps and online platforms. Apps and platforms depend on this revenue stream to offer free services to users, if not for their financial viability altogether. However, targeted advertising also generates significant privacy risks and consumer resentment. Despite sustained attention to this issue, neither legal scholars nor policymakers have crafted interventions that address both concerns, and existing regulatory regimes for targeted advertising have critical gaps.

This Article makes three key contributions to the …

Regulating Light Trucks And Suvs: Making America’S Roads Safer And Air Cleaner, Daniel Delap

Utah Law Review

The increase of trucks and SUVs on the roads in the United States has made streets less safe while contributing to poorer air quality. Compared to other vehicles, trucks and SUVs have a higher center of gravity, a ridged vehicle frame with a larger engine block, a heavier weight requiring more gas to move, and emitting more greenhouse gases. These vehicle features make accidents more common, decrease driver visibility, increase the potential for pedestrian fatalities, and make car accidents more deadly for non-truck or SUV vehicles. This Note explores solutions to these issues and discusses regulatory actions that the Environmental …

Locating Consumer Financial Regulation, Nikita Aggarwal

Cardozo Law Review

Recent advances in data-driven technology in consumer financial markets, commonly referred to as “fintech,” have resurfaced the question of whether and to what extent data, particularly consumers’ personal data, should be a locus for regulatory intervention in these markets. While innovation in fintech and the accompanying increase in the processing of personal data offer to improve the functioning of consumer financial markets, like all advances in technology, they also come with costs and risks. In 2024, in a move that favored the regulation of personal financial data per se and many of the traditional features of personal data protection regulation, …

Revisiting Reasonable Cybersecurity, Jeffrey L. Vagle

Cardozo Law Review

Prospective theories of cybersecurity liability have traveled over some well-worn paths over the past three decades, resulting in some successes, but also in at least as many cul-de-sacs and dead ends. Part of this problem can be found in the difficulty and complexity of the subject itself. Courts, legislators, and regulators all face comprehension difficulties when they attempt to fit our existing legal system around cybersecurity, often resulting in half-measures and generalized solutions that are challenging to apply to the widely different technical details behind each case. And in the background, we have a general reluctance to create legal regimes …

The Law Of Unintended Consequences: Examining West Virginia's Data Privacy Legislation And What Could Have Been, Jena Martin, Erin Kelley

West Virginia Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Deficiencies In The Judicial Classification Of Cryptocurrencies Indicating The Need For Legislative Alternatives, Ethan Johnson

Journal of Legislation

The cryptocurrency industry is desperate for regulatory clarification, which would stabilize and secure cryptocurrency and, ultimately, promote increased investment. How the United States ultimately chooses to pursue cryptocurrency regulation has massive implications for future investment and the development of this technology. Disagreement over how to classify cryptocurrency under the investment contract test created in SEC v. Howey, including the recent Second Circuit split, has led to calls for resolving legislation. Cryptocurrency legislation has recently been passed by the European Union, and there are currently proposals for legislation before Congress in the United States.

This Note considers the context surrounding …

Who Teaches Consumer Law?, Jeff Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

This paper reports on a survey of 31 law professors teaching consumer protection law conducted in connection with the Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice at the UC Berkeley School of Law and the Center for Consumer Law at the University of Houston Law Center’s 2024 Teaching Consumer Law Conference. Surveys posed at previous editions of the Teaching Consumer Law Conference focused largely on what topics are covered in consumer law courses. The 2024 iteration of the survey instead explored responding professors’ goals in consumer law courses and experiences with and views on consumer law matters. Among the findings: …