Kelley Drye Ad Law Access Podcast

Recently, we reported that the AGs (including the DC Attorney General’s Office) are paying close attention to delivery and service fees. Sure enough, the DC AG’s office filed yet another lawsuit related to delivery fees on December 7. The District alleges that Amazon’s Flex tipping practices deceived customers from 2016-2019, stopping only after an FTC investigation ultimately resulted in a 2021 s...

Green marketing is very much in vogue, and so is suing companies over their green marketing. If you want to avoid those suits, you should generally start by looking at the FTC’s Green Guides. But a lot has changed since the Green Guides were last updated in 2012, so they don’t always provide clear answers to today’s questions. That may change, now that the FTC has started the process of updating t...

If you follow our blog, you already know that there have been a number of significant developments in the world of advertising law over the past 12 months. In this post, we highlight ten of those developments and consider what they might mean for the future. https://www.adlawaccess.com/2022/12/articles/top-advertising-law-developments-in-2022/ Contact KDW Ad Law Group DCAdvertisingAttorneys@kelley...

At the National Association of Attorneys General Capital Forum, FTC Chair Lina Khan and CFPB Director Rohit Chopra addressed state AGs and their staff on a number of pressing issues, including antitrust, enforcement authority, privacy and other priorities. And most importantly to the state AG observers, both agency heads expressed the value of state enforcement authority and partnerships. https://...

Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty is an online subscription service that sells women’s lingerie. Like many other subscription services, they have faced scrutiny over how they advertise automatic renewals. In February 2020, Tina.org sent letters to the FTC and CA district attorneys urging them to investigate the company’s marketing practices. In August 2022, the DAs filed a lawsuit against the company, and...

At the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) Capital Forum, consumer protection multistate investigations and enforcement actions were once again a subject of discussion. In a session specifically on the topic, NAAG Consumer Protection Committee Co-Chairs Generals Kwame Raoul of Illinois and Jonathan Skrmetti of Tennessee, as well as Susan Ellis and Jeff Hill, long time top consumer pro...

2022 was a remarkable year for privacy. Utah and Connecticut enacted new privacy laws. California and Colorado launched detailed (and continuing) privacy rulemakings. Congress proposed a landmark bipartisan, bicameral federal privacy bill (the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, or ADPPA). And the FTC initiated a sweeping privacy rulemaking under its Section 18 (Mag-Moss) rulemaking authorit...

In late November, the Pennsylvania AG’s office announced a settlement with Grubhub. In its action, the AG alleged among other claims that Grubhub’s platform did not clearly disclose to consumers that they were sometimes charged higher prices for items ordered through the platform compared to ordering from the restaurant directly. Attorney General Shapiro settled for $125,000 in food bank donations...

Programs that automatically renew have been under a lot of scrutiny lately. Although the focus of scrutiny has often been on how people sign up, both regulators and plaintiffs’ attorneys have also been paying attention to how people cancel. (Click here and here, for example.) A recent decision from the NAD shows that they’re paying attention, too. https://www.adlawaccess.com/2022/12/articles/nad-r...

In recent months, companies have scored some notable victories in lawsuits involving various types of green claims, including carbon emission claims, aspirational claims, and recyclability claims. As we noted in some of those posts, the decisions may have turned out differently if the cases had been heard by NAD. A new decision in a challenge that NAD initiated against various claims made by the A...

In January, we reported that the Texas Attorney General had filed a lawsuit against Google alleging that the company engaged iHeartMedia DJs to provide endorsements for its Pixel 4 phone, even though they had never used it. This week, the FTC and several state attorneys general announced settlements with Google and iHeartMedia over the same conduct. The complaints provide more insights into what m...

Time is money, and when you’re hungry for mac-and-cheese, a few seconds can be worth millions of dollars. Or at least that’s what a Florida woman suggests in her class action lawsuit against Kraft Heinz over a claim on single-serve cups of Velveeta Shells & Cheese stating that the product can be “ready in 31/2 minutes.” https://www.adlawaccess.com/2022/11/articles/woman-sues-over-cook-time-instruc...

Imagine that Megan Thee Stallion told you that by investing as little as $1 in Bitcoin, with herMegan Thee Stallion Ad knowledge and your hustle, “you’ll have your own empire in no time.” Would you think that $1 is all you need to amass a fortune? No, I wouldn’t either. What if Megan was stacking shiny bars of gold while she told you that? I still wouldn’t be convinced, but if you’re on the fence,...

Last year, we posted about Earth Island Institute’s lawsuit against Coca-Cola, alleging that the company falsely represents itself as “a sustainable and environmentally friendly company, despite being one of the largest contributors of plastic pollution in the world.” While many lawsuits involving green claims focus on claims about past or present results (which can usually be proven or disproven)...

The FTC voted unanimously to issue an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) considering expansions to and revisions of the FTC’s existing Business Opportunity Rule (“BOR”). This will be the first review of the BOR since it was promulgated back in December 2011. In her statement announcing the ANPR, Chair Khan indicated that “[t]he rule had served the public well over the years,” but “severa...

Since Lina Khan took the reins of the FTC, the agency has launched five new rulemakings under its Section 18 (“Mag-Moss”) authority – specifically, rules to combat government and business impersonation scams, deceptive earnings claims, “commercial surveillance,” deceptive endorsements, and “junk fees.” (I’m excluding here revisions to existing Mag-Moss rules, as well as rulemakings under other sta...

a coalition of 40 attorneys general obtained two multistate settlements with Experian concerning data breaches it experienced in 2012 and 2015 that compromised the personal information of millions of consumers nationwide. The 2012 breach investigation was co-led by the Massachusetts and Illinois AG offices, and the 2015 investigation was co-led by the AGs of Connecticut, DC, Illinois, and Maryland...

The DC Superior Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by Earth Island Institute against Coca-Cola, alleging that the company falsely represents itself as “a sustainable and environmentally friendly company, despite being one of the largest contributors of plastic pollution in the world.” The court held that many of the challenged statements are aspirational and do not include anything that can be meas...

Multiple state Attorneys General (AGs) and staff from offices nationwide gathered in Washington, DC for the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) 2022 Consumer Protection Fall Conference. The conference addressed pressing and relevant consumer protection issues facing attorney general offices. The public portion of the conference included a panel of current and former AGs, who focused t...

The World Cup kicked off amidst cheers and chants from the fans who had made their way to Qatar to watch the games. Although most fans chanted in support of their teams, Ecuadorean fans in one section of Al Bayt Stadium had a different message: “Queremos cerveza, queremos cerveza.” They want beer. Sadly for them, there is no beer to be had after the government in Qatar made a last-minute decision...

Attorney General Karl Racine announced a new lawsuit against the Washington Commanders, team owner Dan Snyder, the NFL, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for “colluding to deceive DC residents about an investigation into toxic workplace culture and allegations of sexual assault to maintain a strong fanbase and increase profits.” The lawsuit claims that “for decades, Snyder has cultivated an envir...

NAD announced a decision involving various claims made by Accredited Debt Relief and its marketing agency. Although parts of the decision will likely only be of interest to companies who operate in the debt settlement space, the decision also holds some important lessons for companies that operate outside of that space. We’ll focus on those in this post. https://www.adlawaccess.com/2022/11/article...

The FTC’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) seeking comment on a potential rule prohibiting “junk fees” and related practices hit the Federal Register yesterday. The rule has the potential to fundamentally alter how fees are disclosed in advertising and across the customer experience in nearly every industry that charges some type of fee. Interested parties now have until January 9 to...

In a case that will likely resonate with many readers, the FTC’s recent settlement with Vonage describes in excruciating detail the obstacles and costs that Vonage allegedly imposed on consumers when they tried to cancel their phone service. In many ways, it’s a typical FTC case involving deception, unauthorized charges, and misuse of a “negative option” that makes it simple to sign up and almost...

CPRA Rule Revisions Unlikely to be Finalized in 2022 by Kelley Drye Advertising Law