Insights < BACK TO ALL INSIGHTS
Pause Play? CFPB Gaming-Related Rules on Hold
FEATURED
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…
What are you looking for?
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…
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….
Online Sellers Need to Beware of State Attorneys General
March 23, 2011
Online Sellers Need to Beware of State Attorneys General
By: Ifrah Law
The Pennsylvania Attorney General filed a consumer protection lawsuit last month against Zoommania, LLC, a Philadelphia-based Internet electronics store, for a bait-and-switch scheme the company allegedly employed in online sales and for its creation of new websites to avoid negative customer feedback resulting from the scheme. The complaint, which seeks restitution for consumers, alleges that the company’s websites would list inventory as being in stock,…
Does Google Need to Police Its Ads for Fraud?
March 21, 2011
Does Google Need to Police Its Ads for Fraud?
By: Ifrah Law
Do Google and other search engines have an obligation to screen their advertisers for those who may be perpetrating consumer fraud? Google has said in the past that its AdWords Content Policy will reject advertisements for sites that make false claims and that it investigates and removes any ads that violate Google’s internal policies, but a recent letter sent by a public interest group to…
FTC Cracks Down on Merchants’ Empty Promises
March 3, 2011
FTC Cracks Down on Merchants’ Empty Promises
By: Ifrah Law
On March 2, 2011, the Federal Trade Commission announced “Operation Empty Promises,” a multi-agency law enforcement initiative aimed at cracking down on misleading “work from home” and other business opportunity offers. The campaign includes more than 90 actions brought by various state and federal agencies in the past year, including the Department of Justice, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and state law enforcement agencies. It…
Chargebacks Can Be a Major Problem for Small Businesses
February 17, 2011
Chargebacks Can Be a Major Problem for Small Businesses
By: Ifrah Law
The Wall Street Journal has acknowledged the serious problem that chargebacks pose to businesses in an article posted on its website. Merchants pay a heavy price for these reverse credit card transactions, which cost them a lost sale, the lost product, and a fine imposed by the credit card company. What’s more, courts have equated chargebacks to merchant fraud, using merchants’ chargeback rates against them…
FTC Looks at Football Helmet Safety Claims
February 7, 2011
FTC Looks at Football Helmet Safety Claims
By: Ifrah Law
Helmet safety has caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission, which is looking into marketing claims that some football helmets can help reduce concussions. Recent months have seen widespread publicity about concussions and other traumatic head and neck injuries suffered by football players, prompting the National Football League to step up enforcement of rules against illegal hits. Pressure on the FTC to investigate possibly…