The FTC Moves Its Attention to a For-Profit Medical School
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint in the Northern District of Illinois against the Saint James School of Medicine, an Illinois-based for-profit medical school, claiming its Caribbean medical programs deceived consumers with fake student success rates and offers to finance students' attendance with illegal lending contracts.
Latest CFPB Lawsuit Sheds Light on Digital Dark Patterns
A lawsuit filed by the CFPB against a national credit reporting agency provides some insight into the types of website features and designs that regulators like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Trade Commission will target. As we covered previously, digital dark patterns—or website design, features, and interfaces used to allegedly deceive, steer, and manipulate users—are a priority for both rulemaking and enforcement actions by the FTC.
"Free" Must Mean Free? FTC Seeks to Enjoin Intuit from Advertising TurboTax as a "Free" Service
On March 28, 2022, the FTC filed an administrative complaint against Intuit, alleging that the company's marketing of TurboTax as a free tax-filing service misleads consumers because the free service applies only to some, while many end up getting hit with charges at the time of filing.
Update: Judge Allows Most of Receiver's Claims Against Wells Fargo for Involvement with Negative Option Marketers to Proceed
A few weeks ago, we wrote an article discussing two enforcement actions by the Federal Trade Commission in the Central and Southern Districts of California that highlighted the risks to payment processors and financial institutions for their relationships with companies engaged in allegedly unlawful "negative option" marketing.
Biz Opps Stung, Once Again, by the Beehive State
On March 23, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed into law sweeping amendments to the state's Business Opportunity Disclosure Act (BODA). The amendments expand the scope of the statute to cover a broad spectrum of business activity. The amendments apply to any seller of a "business opportunity" who represents to the buyer that the buyer will—or may—derive income from the business that exceeds the amount the buyer pays to buy the product, equipment, supply, or service.
FTC v. Match Group, Inc.: Court Gets Cold Feet on the Standard Set Forth in Shire
Last month, love was not all lost for the owner of Tinder and OKCupid when a Texas federal district court in FTC v. Match Group, Inc. granted in part the online dating service provider's motion to dismiss. Specifically, the court agreed with Match that the FTC could not seek equitable monetary relief under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act and barred two claims based on Match's immunity under the Communications Decency Act (CDA).