Updates on developments in data privacy and cybersecurity
This blog post reports on two recent state telemarketing law developments that affect, among other things, marketing calls and text message transmissions.
Maryland Enacts New Law. Earlier this month, on May 3rd, Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed into law the Stop the Spam Calls Act of 2023, which will take effect on January 1, 2024. …
On April 20, Governor Jay Inslee signed into law the Robocall Scam Protection Act, which will take effect on July 23, 2023.
As we discuss here, the bill makes a number of updates to the state’s telemarketing law. Notably, the bill prohibits commercial solicitations using an “automatic dialing and announcing device.” It also prohibits…
On March 22, 2023, the German Conference of Independent Supervisory Authorities (“SAs”) adopted an opinion on websites that offer users a choice between (i) a free version that tracks users’ behavior or (ii) a (usually paid) version that does not track users’ behavior.…
Continue Reading German Supervisory Authorities Publish Opinion on (Paid) Subscription Websites
This blog post summarizes recent telemarketing developments emerging from Arizona, Washington, and Maryland. Arizona recently amended its state telemarketing law to include a new text message restriction. Washington and Maryland may soon enact more significant updates of their telemarketing laws, including with respect to automated transmissions. The proposed new law in Maryland is particularly notable, as it seeks to impose the same sort of consent requirements on automated marketing calls and texts that exist now in Florida and Oklahoma.…
Continue Reading State Telemarketing Updates: Arizona, Washington, and Maryland
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. …
On December 9, 2022, the European Commissioner for Justice and Consumer Protection, Didier Reynders, announced that the European Commission will focus its next 2023 mandate on regulating dark patterns, alongside transparency in the online advertising market and cookie fatigue. As part of this mandate, the EU’s Consumer Protection Cooperation (“CPC”) Network, conducted a sweep of 399 retail websites and apps for dark patterns, and found that nearly 40% of online shopping websites rely on manipulative practices to exploit consumers’ vulnerabilities or trick them.
In order to enforce these issues, the EU does not have a single legislation that regulates dark patterns, but there are multiple regulations that discuss dark patterns and that may be used as a tool to protect consumers from dark patterns. This includes the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), the Digital Services Act (“DSA”), the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”), and the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (“UCPD”), as well as proposed regulations such as the AI Act and Data Act.
As a result, there are several regulations and guidelines that organizations must consider when assessing whether their practices may be deemed as a dark pattern. In this blog post, we will provide a snapshot of the current EU legislation that regulates dark patterns as well as upcoming legislative updates that will regulate dark patterns alongside the current legal framework.…
On January 13, the FTC announced a settlement with WealthPress, an online service provider that recommends trades in financial markets. The settlement resolved allegations that WealthPress violated both the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA) and Section 5 by making false and misleading claims about how much consumers could earn with the company’s trading recommendation services. The action is noteworthy for two reasons. First, building upon the FTC’s prior MoviePass settlement, the FTC’s ROSCA allegations focus not on the terms of the subscription service offered, but rather on the failure to clearly disclose material information about the company’s services. Second, this is the FTC’s first settlement imposing civil penalties for alleged earnings claims violations predicated upon a Notice of Penalty Offenses issued in October 2021. The settlement provides for $1.3 million in consumer redress, $500,000 in civil penalties, and injunctive relief.…
On November 3, the FTC announced that it entered into a significant $100 million settlement with Vonage to resolve allegations relating to the internet phone service provider’s sales and autorenewal practices. The FTC alleged that Vonage violated both the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA) by failing to provide a simple cancellation mechanism, failing to disclose material transaction terms prior to obtaining consumers’ billing information, and charging consumers without consent.…
Continue Reading FTC Flexes ROSCA Muscle With $100 Million “Dark Patterns” Settlement with Vonage
On October 4, 2022, the EU adopted the Digital Services Act (“DSA”), which imposes new rules on providers of intermediary services (e.g., cloud services, file-sharing services, search engines, social networks and online marketplaces). The DSA will enter into force on November 16, 2022 — although it will only fully apply as of February 17, 2024. …
According to several news reports in the past month of August (for example, Heise.de), the German Government is working on a regulation that will set out the requirements for so-called “consent management services”, which are services for collecting and storing the consent of website users to the placement of cookies and similar technologies. These services would serve as an alternative to cookie banners. Among others, they may obtain consent for several websites at once. More specifically, dedicated software applications could enable users to replicate the consent provided on one website to other websites, therefore generalizing and sorting their consent by category of devices or websites. Users would be asked to review their consents every six months.…
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