Consumer Law & Policy Blog

Millennials, responsible spenders?

So opines the Washington Post, here.

CDC: e-cigarette ads reaching 70% of middle and high schools

A scary statistic. The Post has more on what it means and how it has come about.

Medical debt a significant problem even for the insured

The Times explains:

The number of uninsured Americans has fallen by an estimated 15 million since 2013, thanks largely to the Affordable Care Act. But a new survey, the first detailed study of Americans struggling with medical bills, shows that insurance often fails as a safety net. Health plans often require hundreds or thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket payments — sums that can create a cascade of financial troubles for the many households living paycheck to paycheck.

Read more here.

"How new regulations saved consumers billions in credit card fees"

Vox has this article by writer Harold Pollack on the CARD Act, the credit-card industry, and the value of paying off credit cards every month.

CFPB annual report to Congress

On Monday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its annual report to Congress on the work of the agency from October 1, 2014 - September 30, 2015. If you missed it then (as I did), the report is here.

"Takata Emails Show Brash Exchanges About Data Tampering"

...is the headline of this week's NYT story about internal emails at the manufacturer whose airbags have been the subject of a recall after federal regulators recognized that they had the potential to explode and shoot debris at passengers. A taste of the article:

“Happy Manipulating!!!” a Takata airbag engineer, Bob Schubert, wrote in one email dated July 6, 2006, in a reference to results of airbag tests. In another, he wrote of changing the colors or lines in a graphic “to divert attention” from the test results and “to try to dress it up.”

For a refresher on the scandal, see our prior discussions here, here, and here.

For this week's story on the tampering emails, go here.

Ninth Circuit upholds Facebook settlement

It's been a while since we discussed the Facebook minors'-privacy case, a class action over Facebook's use of members' images in ads without their consent. Public Citizen represented parents who objected to the proposed settlement because it permitted Facebook to continue using their children's images in ads without parental consent -- a practice that violates the law in seven states (CA, FL, NY, OK, TN, VA, WI). After the district court approved the settlement, the parents appealed.

Today the Ninth Circuit affirmed in a cursory decision. The court didn't engage with our arguments that the settlement was unlawful; it said only that the district court did not abuse its discretion by approving the settlement because "[i]t is . . . not clear whether the settlement at issue . . . violates state law." This conclusory statement is surprising in light of the plain text of the state laws at issue. For instance, in California, “Any person who knowingly uses another’s name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness, in any manner, on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for purposes of advertising or selling, or soliciting purchases of, products, merchandise, goods or services, without such person’s prior consent, or, in the case of a minor, the prior consent of his parent or legal guardian, shall be liable . . . .” Cal. Civ. Code § 3344(a) (emphasis added). The laws of Florida, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin are to similar effect, and there are additional criminal prohibitions on this practice in New York, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. What more did the court need? Its decision, disappointingly, did not say.

$15 minimum wage for NYC workers

From the Times:

Mayor Bill de Blasio is set to announce on Wednesday a $15-an-hour minimum wage for New York City’s public work force that city officials said would be among the highest of its kind in the country.

Under the mayor’s plan, which matches a similar increase for state employees enacted by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo last year, about 50,000 city workers — including crossing guards, prekindergarten teachers, custodial workers and others — would see their pay reach the $15-an-hour level by the end of 2018.

Read more here.

Busy day at the FTC

The Federal Trade Commission had a busy yesterday, settling charges in three separate matters, as described in these FTC press releases:

• FTC Secures $4.4 Million From Online Payday Lenders to Settle Deception Charges

• Dental Practice Software Provider Settles FTC Charges It Misled Customers About Encryption of Patient Data

• Lumosity to Pay $2 Million to Settle FTC Deceptive Advertising Charges for Its “Brain Training” Program

 

Justice Department sues Volkswagen over emissions scheme

The NYT reports:

The Justice Department sued the German automaker Volkswagen in federal court on Monday, saying that the company installed illegal devices in nearly 600,000 diesel engine systems to impair emissions controls, increasing harmful air pollution. But despite a pledge by the Justice Department in September to go after executives responsible for corporate wrongdoing, federal prosecutors stopped short of criminal charges and did not single out individuals. . . . 

In September, Volkswagen admitted that it had installed the software created to cheat on emissions tests in 11 million of its diesel vehicles worldwide, setting off one of the largest corporate scandals in the auto industry. Since then, regulators in the United States and Canada have accused the company of also installing devices to cheat emissions on some vehicles with larger engines, a claim Volkswagen has disputed. Federal prosecutors on Monday said the company had “impeded and obstructed” regulators’ inquiries and provided “misleading information.”

Read the full story here. (For some of our previous discussions of the scandal, see here and here.)