Overhead view of game controller with purple lit keyboard amidst various wireless devices and drink can on black desk

Pause Play? CFPB Gaming-Related Rules on Hold

Pause Play? CFPB Gaming-Related Rules on Hold

February 12, 2025

Pause Play? CFPB Gaming-Related Rules on Hold

By: Michelle Cohen

Newly installed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) Director Russell Vought directed agency staff to stop work on agency matters and stay home. The future of many of the CFPB-led initiatives looks bleak, including a recent interpretive rule proposal that would treat video game publishers like payment processors. Background Congress created the CFPB, an independent federal agency, in 2011 in response to the financial crisis of 2007-08.  The agency oversees federal financial consumer protection laws and has jurisdiction over a wide range of entities, including mortgage lenders and brokers, student loan issuers, and other financial institutions. In 2024, the CFPB began to focus on an unlikely target – video game companies. The agency started monitoring developments in the video game industry…

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Death of the CFPB and Impact on Consumer Arbitration

February 11, 2025

Death of the CFPB and Impact on Consumer Arbitration

By: George Calhoun

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) has spent years trying to limit provisions that may be placed into consumer contracts, particularly with regard to class-action waivers, arbitration, and damages limitations. In 2015, the CFPB conducted a study of consumer arbitration clauses.  Notably, the CFPB’s study found that few class action cases proceed to trial, but in those that do, trial lawyers make $1 million per…

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Cancelling Subscriptions Could be Easier, or Maybe Signing Up Will Get Harder

January 15, 2025

Cancelling Subscriptions Could be Easier, or Maybe Signing Up Will Get Harder

By: Jordan Briggs

Drawn in by the appeal of steady revenue, nearly three-quarters of direct-to-consumer companies now include a subscription model.[1] Everything has a subscription these days: video games, groceries, dating apps—you can even subscribe to a service to cancel your other subscriptions.[2] These subscriptions were not deterred from joining their most prominent predecessor (the gym membership) as an age-old punchline about how hard they are to cancel….

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Raising Money for COVID 19 Related Causes? Read this First.

March 23, 2020

Raising Money for COVID 19 Related Causes? Read this First.

By: Nicole Kardell

Cause Marketing Social causes are an important part of both community and business culture. Increasingly, businesses identify social causes to support as a part of their company mission. When they fold that mission into their marketing, it can trigger federal and state consumer protection laws (as well as federal tax laws). Why? To prevent fraud and deception. Regulators do not want for-profit companies to mislead…

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One revision, two revisions … three revisions or more?: The California Attorney General Releases A Second Round of Edits to its Draft CCPA Regulations

March 17, 2020

One revision, two revisions … three revisions or more?: The California Attorney General Releases A Second Round of Edits to its Draft CCPA Regulations

By: Nicole Kardell

While the world is uni-focused on the Corona virus, companies doing business in California and impacted by the California Consumer Privacy Act must face another dizzying round of revisions to the California Attorney General’s draft implementing regulations. The AG released its latest set of revisions on March 11, providing an additional notice and comment period through March 27. The latest round of revisions reveals the…

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Data Control of the People, by the People, for the People…

November 22, 2019

Data Control of the People, by the People, for the People…

By: Nicole Kardell

Can the free market weigh in on data privacy and further data privacy rights in way that the law cannot? Can the free market put control over people’s data back in individuals’ hands? Many of us have been waiting for a market solution to address the privacy of personal data. As attorneys, we know from experience that laws and regulations are not always the best…

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Putting the Brakes on Swift and Sweeping Adoption of Facial Recognition Technologies

November 12, 2019

Putting the Brakes on Swift and Sweeping Adoption of Facial Recognition Technologies

By: Nicole Kardell

When it is not clear which way to go, don’t. This is the upshot of an article by Wojciech Wiewiorowski: Facial recognition: A solution in search of a problem? Wiewiorowski is the Assistant Supervisor at the European Data Protection Supervisor (the E.U.’s independent data protection authority), which published his article on their site in late October. The post came out in the midst of a…

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SEC’s Lawsuit Against Telegram Raises Questions About Cryptocurrency “Presales” Under Regulation D

October 17, 2019

SEC’s Lawsuit Against Telegram Raises Questions About Cryptocurrency “Presales” Under Regulation D

By: Ifrah Law

On October 11, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed a lawsuit against Telegram Group, Inc. and TON Issuer, Inc. (“Telegram”), and simultaneously obtained a temporary restraining order preventing Telegram from issuing its “Gram” cryptocurrency, which had been scheduled for delivery on October 31, 2019.  The SEC claimed that the sale of Grams amount to an unregistered securities offering in violation of federal securities…

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Articles and Presentations by Our Firm Attorneys

Pause Play? CFPB Gaming-Related Rules on Hold

Pause Play? CFPB Gaming-Related Rules on Hold
By: Michelle Cohen

Death of the CFPB and Impact on Consumer Arbitration

Death of the CFPB and Impact on Consumer Arbitration
By: George Calhoun

Cancelling Subscriptions Could be Easier, or Maybe Signing Up Will Get Harder

Cancelling Subscriptions Could be Easier, or Maybe Signing Up Will Get Harder
By: Jordan Briggs

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