Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

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.

The American Way - Until Machine Learning Algorithm Beats The Law?, Asress Adimi Gikay

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

Algorithmic consumer credit scoring has caused anxiety among scholars and policy makers. After a significant legislative effort by the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that has provisions tailored to automated decision-making (ADM) was implemented. When the EU Commission and the US Department of Commerce negotiated for US organizations to whom data from EU data controller is transferred to comply with the key principles of EU Data Protection Law under the EU-US Privacy Shield (PS) Framework, the Department of Commerce refused to incorporate the GDPR principles governing ADM in the PS Framework. The EU Commission accepted this refusal …

One Consumer’S Trash Is Another’S Treasure: Upcycling’S Place In Trademark Law, Jolie Brett Schenerman

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The note argues that upcycling, the process of creating new, high-value products from salvaged materials, should be protected under trademark law's fair use doctrine. It contends that upcycling, unlike traditional infringement, does not confuse consumers about the source of goods and instead creates transformative works that benefit both sustainability and brand relevance. The analysis draws parallels between upcycling and parody, advocating for similar legal protections, and highlights the evolving relationship between luxury brands and upcyclers, from litigation to collaboration.

Internet Architecture And Disability, Blake E. Reid

Publications

The Internet is essential for education, employment, information, and cultural and democratic participation. For tens of millions of people with disabilities in the United States, barriers to accessing the Internet—including the visual presentation of information to people who are blind or visually impaired, the aural presentation of information to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and the persistence of Internet technology, interfaces, and content without regard to prohibitive cognitive load for people with cognitive and intellectual disabilities—collectively pose one of the most significant civil rights issues of the information age. Yet disability law lacks a comprehensive theoretical approach …

Enhancing The Level Of Consumer Protection In China: A Reform Proposal For The Odr System, Xiao Gu

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This thesis examines the limits of current dispute resolutions to resolve disputes between consumers and online platform economics entities to make recommendations to optimize the ODR system to resolve these disputes. Therefore, there is a hypothesis of this thesis that by reference to the legislation and experience abroad, the author should make a proposal on the reformation of the current ODR system based on the context and tradition of the ODR system in China to enhance the level of consumer protection. In the thesis, the author performed analyses and made suggestions as follows: (1) to clarify some basic concepts related …

Collective Preclusion And Inaccessible Arbitration: Data, Non-Disclosure, And Public Knowledge, Judith Resnik, Stephanie Garlock, Annie J. Wang

Lewis & Clark Law Review

When courts enforce mandates to arbitrate, jurists describe themselves as respecting the individuals’ autonomy to enter into contracts that route claimants to a process that is more user-friendly than adjudication. But those rationales are disjunctive with the practices of providers of goods and services and of employers. These companies neither offer individuals choices about dispute resolution mechanisms nor welcome the exchange of information about experiences with arbitration. Instead, companies impose obligations to arbitrate and set the terms. In addition to the increasingly commonplace bans on joint and collective actions in any forum, many providers and employers also seek to mandate …

Holding Oregon Benefit Companies Accountable For Greenwashing And Faux Csr, Sophia Von Bergen

Lewis & Clark Law Review

The notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained popularity in recent years with both consumers and businesses, leading to Oregon and currently 35 other states adopting benefit company statutes that allow companies to elect status as a benefit corporation. CSR, however, can be marred by what is known as “greenwashing” and “faux CSR,” which occur when a company falsely claims that it engages in environmentally friendly or socially responsible practices to boost sales or improve its brand. Oregon’s benefit company statute contains features designed to protect against greenwashing and faux CSR, but the statute’s accountability mechanisms are lackluster. Enforcement …

Shadow Credit And The Devolution Of Consumer Credit Regulation, Nathalie Martin, Lydia Pizzonia

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Shadow credit is trending. Shadow credit has all the essential attributes of regular credit except that it is unregulated. It operates in a world in which products and services that look, act, and feel like credit products are deemed to be something that is not actually credit. This legal sidestep is accomplished either by passing industry-friendly legislation or by tweaking the shadow credit product just enough to not be defined as credit, but “something else.” That “something else” is often called a “lease,” an “advance,” or in the case of After- pay, simply a “service.” At its essence, however, it …

Where Victims Of Data Breach Stand: Why The Breach Of Personally Identifying Information Should Be Federally Codified As Sufficient Standing For Data Breach Causes Of Action, Gabriela Nastasi

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Friday Night “Who Is Driving?” Debate Will Soon Come To An End: How Autonomous Vehicles Are Changing Our Lives And Societal Norms, Nicholas Calabria

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Consumer Activism: From The Informed Minority To The Crusading Minority, Yonathan A. Arbel, Roy Shapira

Articles

Legal scholars have long recognized that market norms are respected not only because of consumer protection laws, but also because of internal market dynamics. Consumers, the argument goes, fend for themselves and hold sellers accountable. But how exactly do consumers discipline sellers? The most influential model has been the informed minority theory, according to which a critical mass of informed consumers reads and negotiates contracts in advance, thereby pressuring sellers to offer better contracts to all consumers. Recent empirical studies, however, cast doubt on the existence of such a mass, leading many to view the informed minority theory as unrealistic. …

Pills, Public Nuisance, And Parens Patriae: Questioning The Propriety Of The Posture Of The Opioid Litigation, Michelle L. Richards

University of Richmond Law Review

The opioid crisis has been in litigation for almost twenty years on various fronts, including criminal prosecutions of pharmaceutical executives, civil lawsuits by individuals against drug manufacturers and physicians, class actions by those affected by opioid abuse, and criminal actions filed by the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”). In the early 2000s, opioid litigation began with individual plaintiffs filing suit against manufacturers and others for damages allegedly related to opioid use. The litigation has since expanded significantly in terms of the type of plaintiffs and defendants, the nature of the claims being asserted, and the damages attributable to the crisis.

The …

The Erosion Of Publisher Liability In American Law, Section 230, And The Future Of Online Curation, Brent Skorup, Jennifer Huddleston

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Facebook And The Future Of Fair Housing Online, Jacob Parker Black

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction: The Rise Of Fintech, Andrew F. Tuch

Scholarship@WashULaw

This foreword introduces "The Rise of Fintech," a series of essays published in a symposium issue of the Washington University Journal of Law & Policy. The contributions examine the structure of firms and markets, considering fintech activities occurring within existing firms and regulatory perimeters and activities that spill over the boundaries we currently take for granted. The contributors examine the emerging regulatory responses to fintech, taxonomizing them. They consider which regulatory approaches, or ecosystems, will best help fintech to develop. They examine how fintech applies to fundraising, examining initial coin offerings (ICOs) and equity crowdfunding, techniques that attract attention for …

Driver For Contactless Payments, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

As a consumer, my primary experience with cash before the virus was standing in checkout lines observing the sluggish pace of cash transactions in front of me. Like so many things in our lives, the advent of the virus has changed the situation markedly. From the earliest days of infection, it has been far more unsettling to observe cash transactions knowing that the virus persists on paper and metal surfaces for days.

The dynamic that has driven the choices merchants offer in face-to-face retail transactions will change as well. Driven by the private exigencies of the retail environment, the last …

Demystifying Unconscionability: An Historical And Empirical Analysis, Brian Mccall

Faculty Articles

The doctrine of unconscionability is encrusted with myths. First year law students are taught that the doctrine was created in the twentieth century. Unconscionability is often presented as a novel one, born in the Uniform Commercial Code’s adoption of Section 2-302 in the mid-twentieth century. Even those scholars who are willing to look a bit further afield than the twentieth century for the origins of the unconscionability doctrine typically only reach the mid eighteenth century. In addition to myths surrounding its origin, the doctrine has been presented as a dangerously vague and imprecise concept. Commentators and scholars have likewise characterized …

Consumer Bankruptcy Should Be Increasingly Irrelevant - Why Isn't It?, Pamela Foohey

Articles by Maurer Faculty

There are important reasons why consumer bankruptcy remains relevant, even if consumers’ and bankruptcy’s interests have diverged. Some of these reasons suggest that it is more relevant than ever. The remainder of this response overviews the place consumer bankruptcy presently occupies in the United States. In doing so, I detail why consumer bankruptcy remains relevant in the face of a socio-economic structure and of laws that suggest that bankruptcy may not be a particularly useful place for struggling Americans to turn to for help. The response ends by calling for a bolder vision for consumer bankruptcy in light of the …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Payday, Yonathan A. Arbel

Articles

Legislation lags behind technology all too often. While trillions of dollars are exchanged in online transactions-safely, cheaply, and instantaneously-workers still must wait two weeks to a month to receive payments from their employers. In the modern economy, workers are effectively lending money to their employers, as they wait for earned wages to be paid.

The same worker who taps a credit card to pay for groceries in semiautomated checkout lines depends on dated payroll systems that only transfer payments on a "payday." Workers, especially those living paycheck-to-paycheck, are hard-pressed to meet their daily needs and turn to expensive, short-term credit …