The Federal Trade Commission’s recent settlement with Dalal A. Akoury and AWAREmed Health & Wellness Resource Center provides a good overview of how today’s FTC approaches medical claims it believes are unsubstantiated. The case also serves as a reminder that if medical claims sound too good to be true, they probably are. According to the complaint, filed by the Justice Department on behalf of the FTC, defendants, under Khoury’s leadership, engaged in deceptive acts or practices in violation of Sections 5 and 12 of the FTC Act and the Opioid Addiction Recovery Fraud Prevention Act (OARFPA ..read more

Earlier this month, New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking aimed at setting greater guardrails against price increases during emergencies. The action comes exactly one year after James first initiated the rulemaking process by seeking comment regarding potential price gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic. After amending the price gouging statute to expand its scope, in 2020 the New York legislature granted James rulemaking authority. In March 2022, James launched the first rulemaking process with an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which sought pub ..read more

Last month, the National Advertising Division of BBB National Programs reviewed Pier 1’s subscription rewards program and recommended that the company provide clearer disclosures of the automatic renewal program. The case, brought as part of NAD’s monitoring activities, analyzed the Pier 1 Rewards program, a subscription-based customer loyalty program through which customers are charged a recurring monthly or annual fee. The membership provides a 10% discount sitewide and free shipping and returns on eligible items. According to NAD, when a consumer added an item to their cart on the Pier 1 we ..read more

New opportunities for wireless communication may be coming, as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) considers a new regulatory regime allowing satellite connectivity by consumer handsets on terrestrial networks. The draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, “Single Network Future: Supplemental Coverage from Space,” likely to be adopted at the FCC’s March 16 meeting, proposes to allow mobile service providers and satellite operators to work together to expand mobile coverage in remote, unserved, and underserved areas. The FCC is the first regulator to propose rules to allow what some term “ce ..read more

The Ninth Circuit has never been shy about declining to compel arbitration, and the Court has issued multiple cases outlining what constitutes sufficient notice of certain provisions in consumer-facing terms and conditions, including website terms and conditions. Just last year, in Berman v. Freedom Financial Network LLC, the Court agreed that a motion to compel arbitration should be denied where the plaintiff alleged that he did not see a notice stating, “I understand and agree to the Terms & Conditions which includes mandatory arbitration.” The Court noted that the text that purported to ..read more

On February 27, 2023, the Supreme Court granted the certiorari petition of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to hear a case that could cast doubt on all of the regulations that have been promulgated by the bureau to date, as well as all pending investigations and litigation brought by the agency. The Court will consider in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) v. Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSA) whether the CFPB’s funding mechanism violates the Appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says, “no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, b ..read more

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing to “ban the practice of obtaining a single consumer consent as grounds for delivering calls and text messages from multiple marketers on subjects beyond the scope of the original consent.” According to the FCC, the proposed rule’s intent is to prevent lead generators from obtaining consent to receive calls and texts from multiple “partner companies” identified through a hyperlink rather than on the same page where consent is obtained. Implementing this rule could drastically change the way l ..read more

The first quarter of 2023 hasn’t started much better for the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry than the fourth quarter of 2022 ended. Last week, in Friel v. Dapper Labs, Inc et al., a federal judge declined to dismiss a class action complaint alleging securities law violations, finding that the Plaintiffs plausibly alleged that the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) sold on the NBA’s Top Shot platform could be securities. The ruling was the first of its kind, and while the court expressly stated that it is narrow in scope and other NFTs may not be securities, the holding could ultimately have far ..read more

In what could be a seminal case of the Internet age, the U.S. Supreme Court this week heard arguments in Gonzalez v. Google, its first case concerning the hotly debated Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The case’s potential ramifications might be gleaned from the 70-plus amicus briefs filed by major companies, states, elected officials, and organizations. Section 230 provides immunity to Internet platforms from liability arising out of third-party content posted to the platform’s websites.  The statute prevents a “provider or user of an interactive computer service” from ..read more

It’s here! The 11th edition of Venable’s popular Advertising Law Tool Kit is now available for download. This annual resource compiles a broad spectrum of marketing-related topics, background information, and checklists into an easy-to-access guide, authored by some of the most experienced attorneys in the industry. Download this year’s Tool Kit or bookmark the link to our e-book for quick access to these industry best practices. If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to this award-winning blog, and tune in to our comprehensive webinar series, where our team addresses current events and ..read more