Consumer Law & Policy Blog

Study finds 83% of consumers agreed to social network terms of service that obliged them to provide kidney or eyeball

Jonathan A. Obar of the Department of Communication Studies at York University and the Quello Center at Michigan State and Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch of the Department of Communication at Connecticut have written Older Adults and 'The Biggest Lie on the Internet': From Ignoring Social Media Policies to the Privacy Paradox, 16 International Journal of Communication 4779 (2022). Here's the abstract:

Older adults (50+) may self-report online privacy concerns and claims of protective behaviors, but what happens when actual privacy behaviors are assessed? An experimental survey (N = 500) evaluated older adult engagement with the online consent process for a fictitious social networking service called NameDrop. Results demonstrate 77.6% chose the clickwrap, agreeing to the privacy policy (PP) without accessing it. For those accessing policies, average PP reading time was about 70 seconds, 81.4 seconds for terms of service (TOS). Participants convey an interest in protections but find policies long, complicated, and impeding a desire to join services quickly. Results also suggest two examples of the privacy paradox: for clickwrap use and for policy reading time. To address these ignoring behaviors, digital service providers should offer support by addressing problematic designs like clickwraps and long/complicated policies. Findings emphasize implications as 91.4% of participants accepted the NameDrop PP, which included data collection/sharing “gotcha” clauses, while 83.4% accepted the TOS, including an extreme clause requiring users to provide a kidney or other “redundant organ” in exchange for service.

CPSC tips for holiday cooking, decorating and toy shopping; CPSC report on toy-related injuries

The Consumer Product Safety Commission today issued "Top tips for Holiday cooking, decorating and toy shopping." Scroll down on this page.

CPSC also issued a report called Toy-Related Deaths and Injuries for 2021. According to the report, there were more than 152,000 toy-related, emergency department-treated injuries to children younger than 15 years of age, including two deaths, in 2021. The fatalities involved choking on a small part of a toy and suffocating on a soft toy in an unsafe sleep environment. Frequently, these injuries involved lacerations and contusions, and abrasions to the child’s face and head. Importantly, many of the incidents were associated with, but not necessarily caused by, a toy. For children younger than 15 years old, non-motorized scooters continued to be the category of toys associated with the most injuries. Males accounted for 58 percent of all of the injuries.

FTC releases data on do-not-call registry, robocall complaints, and consumer complaints

The Federal Trade Commission today released the National Do Not Call Registry Data Book for Fiscal Year 2022. The Data Book provides the most recent fiscal year information available on robocall complaints, the types of calls consumers reported to the FTC, and a complete state-by-state analysis.

According to the Data Book, complaints about imposter calls again topped the list, with almost 287,000 received during the fiscal year ending on September 30, 2022, including both live calls and robocalls. In such calls, imposters falsely pose as government representatives, such as the Social Security Administration or the IRS, legitimate business entities, or as people affiliated with them.

The FTC reports that, in the last fiscal year, more than 2.5 million people signed up with the Do-Not-Call Registry, bringing the total to more than 246 million phone numbers.

CFP: IACL Conference in Germany: Challenges and Unanswered Questions of Consumer Law

We received the following call for papers. More information is available here.

18^th International Association of Consumer Law Conference (IACL)

Topic: Challenges and Unanswered Questions of Consumer Law

CALL FOR PAPERS

Abstract submission deadline: 16 December 2022
Feedback: 20 February 2023
Guidelines: max. 300 words, 5-7 keywords
Dates: Wednesday, 19 July 2023 – Friday, 21 July 2023
Venue: Rudolf Steiner Haus, Mittelweg 11-12, 20148 Hamburg, Germany

The 18th conference of the International Association of Consumer law will be organized around the theme of “Challenges and Unanswered Questions of Consumer Law”. We kindly invite participants from around the world to submit an abstract (max. 300 words, with a deadline of 16 December 2022) of a paper they would like to present during the conference. Abstracts and inquiries should be submitted to contact@iacl2023.com. Please note that no interpreters will be available for language translations.

The conference will run from approximately 9:00 AM on Wednesday, 19 July to 2:00 PM on Friday, 21 July 2023. It will be held at the Rudolf Steiner Haus in Hamburg, Germany. The goal of this conference is to provide a forum where leading international scholars, practitioners, representatives of consumer organizations, public authorities and business can gather together to present and discuss issues relevant to consumer protection in many sectors and from various perspectives. We welcome both theoretical and empirical submissions.

Conference organizers are hoping to offer a publication opportunity of selected papers in well-known journals. Furthermore, all papers will be published on the conference website. Nevertheless, all authors are free to publish their work in other venues as they choose.

TOPICS

Challenges and Unanswered Questions of Consumer Law. Technological developments in the area of consumption challenge traditional ideas of consumer contracts as only bilateral agreements. While traditional law focuses on institutions such as banks, insurance companies, department stores etc., technological developments increasingly lead to a focus on functions such as banking, insurance and sales, which can be offered by very different and less controlled entities. Intermediaries use the platform economy to link newcomers with consumers who may have different grades of access. Thus, supervisory institutions which are mostly organised on the national level lose influence while consumer contract law is increasingly relevant for issues of the public good.

Within the general theme, presenters might reflect on past successes (and failures) of consumer law and policy in a particular area of commerce, opportunities for moving consumer law in a different direction, or the potential threats to consumer welfare (particularly the impact of changes in the political landscape in some parts of the world). Papers focusing on consumer law in individual countries are welcome, as well as papers with an international focus.

See website for details on possible topics and other details.

CFPB report finds credit reporting failures, junk fees, and mishandling of COVID-19 protections

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released a new Supervisory Highlights report on legal violations identified during the CFPB’s supervisory examinations in the first half of 2022. The report details key findings across consumer financial products and services, including how consumer reporting companies and data furnishers continued to violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act by failing to promptly address and update incorrect information on credit reports. The report also highlights instances where mortgage servicers charged impermissible fees when homeowners went to make their mortgage payments.

The report is here.

NCLC's Lauren Saunders on the practical implications of the Fifth Circuit's ruling that CFPB funding is unconstitutional

Lauren Saunders of the National Consumer Law Center has written "Practice Implications of Fifth Circuit Ruling That CFPB Funding Unconstitutional." Read it here.

Texas judge strikes down federal student debt relief plan

As NPR reports, "President Biden's plan to erase federal student loan debts for tens of millions of borrowers hit a legal wall Thursday, when a U.S. District Court judge in Texas called it unlawful and vacated the debt relief program. The federal government immediately appealed the decision, which came just weeks before student loan payments are set to resume in January. The program was already on hold while a federal appeals court in St. Louis considers a separate lawsuit by six states challenging it."

The decision is here. The Department of Education released a statement, here.

Raba Report: Co-Opting California Courts: How Private Creditors Have Turned the Judiciary Into a Predatory Student Debt Collection Machine

Claire Johnson Raba of Irvine has written Co-Opting California Courts: How Private Creditors Have Turned the Judiciary Into a Predatory Student Debt Collection Machine. Here is the abstract:

In a report, Claire Johnson Raba, a SBPC fellow and clinical teaching fellow at the University of California Irvine School of Law’s Consumer Law Clinic, shows the effect of predatory private student loan collection practices on borrowers in California. With creditors dragging borrowers into court for debts they often do not owe and lacking the documents necessary to back up their claims, the report lays out the harmful long-term impacts to borrowers’ credit and finances.

With over 12,500 California borrowers having faced private student loan debt collection lawsuits over the past 13 years from large, out-of-state creditors including the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts, lawmakers in the state are moving forward legislation that would protect borrowers from these harmful practices.

NCLC Report on Reg F finds consumers still struggling to understand validation notices

Here. Some other notable findings:

Requests to stop particular types of communication are often ignored by collectors. Most survey respondents indicated that debt collectors generally do not comply with requests from consumers to cease contacting them via a particular method of communication—in violation of Regulation F.

* * *

Collection of time-barred debts continued, including suits and threats of suits. A majority of consumer advocates reported that debt collectors are still collecting time-barred debts after November 30, 2021. Even with disclosures, consumer advocates reported that consumers find this concept confusing. Moreover, some consumer advocates reported that debt collectors continue to sue and threaten to sue on time-barred debts, although this was prohibited by Regulation F.

State-owned nursing home asks Supreme Court to limit patients' right to sue

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Health & Hospital Corp. v. Talevski, which poses the question whether people who depend on initiatives that are funded in part by the federal government — such as Medicaid and programs that provide services for nutrition, housing and disabilities — can states when their rights are violated. Here is how the plaintiff's brief sums up the case:

Respondent Gorgi Talevski was a resident of Valparaiso Care and Rehabilitation (VCR), a government nursing home in Valparaiso, Indiana. He had dementia. VCR found caring for him difficult, so it administered psychotropic drugs to restrain him, then involuntarily transferred him to another facility. The Federal Nursing Home Reform Act (FNHRA) specifies that nursing homes in the Medicaid program “must protect” “the right” of “each resident” to be “free from ... chemical restraints imposed for purposes of discipline or convenience,” 42 U.S.C. § 1396r(c)(1)(A)(ii), and “must not transfer or discharge the resident” without notice and consent except in narrow circumstances not present here, § 1396r(c)(2)(A). The Civil Rights Act of 1871 provides a cause of action against any person who, under color of state law, deprives another of “any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws.” § 1983. Respondent’s wife, his guardian, sued VCR and its affiliates under § 1983 on his behalf for violating his FNHRA rights. The questions presented are:

1. 1. Whether this Court should overrule a half-century of precedent that has consistently interpreted § 1983 as capable of securing “rights” under “laws” enacted pursuant to the Spending Clause.
   2. Whether the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act’s rights against chemical restraint and improper discharge and transfer are federal rights that § 1983 protects.

The full docket, with links to all the briefs, is here.

An NPR story, about the case, "A SCOTUS nursing home case could limit the rights of millions of patients," is here.