Welcome to our first 2023 issue of News and Views. This year promises to be a busy year for consumer protection policy and law. Our attorneys will be keeping a close on eye on these issues.
We started the year welcoming FTC veteran Kate White to our practice. Read more about Kate below. Also be sure to register for our webinar, “Digital Advertising Privacy Program Priorities and Tech must-knows for 2023” to help prepare for 2023 U.S. data privacy compliance effective dates in California (CPRA), Virginia, Connecticut, Colorado, and Utah.
Kelley Drye & Warren LLP announced that Katherine White has joined the firm as partner in its Privacy and Advertising practice groups. Kate joins Kelley Drye after serving more than 14 years at the FTC where she held roles as an advisor to Commissioner Noah Phillips, as counsel to the Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, and as a senior attorney in the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection.
UPCOMING EVENT
Digital Advertising Privacy Program Priorities and Tech must-knows for 2023
2023 will be a busy year for privacy teams balancing legal obligations and technology requirements.
Join Kelley Drye’s Aaron Burstein, Ketch’s Jonathan Joseph, and IAB’s Tony Ficarrotta as they unpack some of the more challenging obligations and trends relevant to digital advertising when it comes to U.S. data privacy compliance across California (CPRA), Virginia, Connecticut, Colorado, and Utah - which all go into effect at various points in 2023.
January 19, 2023”,“12 PM ET”,“Webinar
Register
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We have previously discussed the emphasis that the FTC has put on fake reviews throughout 2022, with proposed updates to the Endorsement Guides and a proposed rule to combat fake reviews in addition to enforcement efforts. State Attorneys General continue to also make fake reviews a top priority.
The 2019 movie Yesterday is about a world without the Beatles. The 2022 lawsuit over Yesterday is about a movie without Ana de Armas. Two fans who each paid $3.99 to rent the movie based on seeing the actress in the trailer decided to sue Universal after seeing that she had been removed from the final cut of the film.
While State Attorneys General have been clear that social media companies are generally on their radar for a variety of consumer protection concerns, TikTok has been the latest to make headlines in recent weeks. For example, multiple states have banned TikTok from government phones, and a federal government ban may soon follow, because of concerns about the Chinese government’s control over the platform. Higher education institutions are also joining in the app’s ban with Georgia public colleges and the University of Oklahoma being two of the most recent to do so.
Just in time for the holidays, the FTC has released two companion settlements resolving allegations that Epic Games (maker of the popular video game Fortnite) violated the Children’s Online Protection Act (COPPA) and the FTC Act, with Epic to pay $520 million in penalties and consumer redress. The cases build on existing FTC law and precedent but add new dimensions that should interest a wide array of companies subject to FTC jurisdiction.
The FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection released its Health Products Compliance Guidance—a sweeping overhaul of the 1998 Guidance, Dietary Supplements: An Advertising Guide for Industry. Unlike the recently announced effort to review its Green Guides, the FTC did not seek public comment prior to issuing this update.
Money-back guarantees can often be subject to detailed terms and conditions. When advertising those guarantees, clients often ask us how much has to be disclosed in an ad itself, versus how much can be disclosed on a landing page. Although there isn’t a bright line rule, a recent NAD challenge sheds light on what practices may lead to complaints.
We previously reported that the AGs (including the DC Attorney General’s Office) are paying close attention to delivery and service fees. Sure enough, the DC AG’s office filed yet another lawsuit related to delivery fees on December 7.
Green marketing is very much in vogue, and so is suing companies over their green marketing. If you want to avoid those suits, you should generally start by looking at the FTC’s Green Guides. But a lot has changed since the Green Guides were last updated in 2012, so they don’t always provide clear answers to today’s questions. That may change, now that the FTC has started the process of updating the Guides.
If you follow our blog, you already know that there have been a number of significant developments in the world of advertising law over the past 12 months. In this post, we highlight ten of those developments and consider what they might mean for the future.