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Alexandra Remick

Alexandra Remick is an associate in the firm’s Washington, DC office and a member of the Advertising and Consumer Protection Group. Her practice focuses on regulatory and compliance matters related to consumer protection.

On June 30, the FTC announced that it had issued a new notice of proposed rulemaking that addresses fake reviews and testimonials.  The rule prohibits practices the Commissioners have identified as problematic in public statements for the past several years.  For instance, when announcing the review of the Endorsement Guides over a year ago, Chair Khan noted that “consumers’ increasing reliance on online reviews can also incentivize advertisers to harness fake reviews, suppress negative reviews, and amplify positive ones.”  The proposed rule covers a variety of topics including fake reviews, review hijacking, purchasing reviews, employee reviews, review suppression, and the use of fake indicators of social media influence.  Several of the new provisions track principles set forth in prior FTC cases, or target specific practices previously identified in the Endorsement Guides.  Below we’ve summarized the requirements in the proposed rule.  The NPRM will be open for public comment for 60 days once it is posted in the federal register.  As of today, it has not yet been posted.

Continue Reading FTC Proposes New Rulemaking Focused on Reviews and Testimonials

On March 23, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced a notice of proposed rulemaking that would significantly revise the legal framework governing automatically renewing subscriptions.  The proposal would amend the FTC’s existing Negative Option Rule to provide specific disclosure, consent, and cancellation requirements applicable to all negative options in all media.  The Rule would formalize many of the guidelines from the FTC’s October 2021 Enforcement Policy Statement Regarding Negative Option Marketing (“Policy Statement”) and incorporate new requirements not previously addressed at the federal level such as renewal reminders.  

Continue Reading FTC Proposes to Rewrite Negative Option Rule with Expansive Notice of Proposed Rulemaking