Federal and State Enforcement

The Federal Trade Commission and the Florida Attorney General obtained a court order against a telemarketer, who “blasted consumers with telemarketing cold calls promising to permanently and substantially reduce their credit card interest rates. …defendants allegedly promised to save them thousands of dollars in credit card interest and enable them to pay off their credit […]

Privacy Shield Invalid

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the highest Court in the EU, struck down Privacy Shield last week.  The reasoning of the Court for invalidating Privacy Shield is the lack of protection of data being transferred to the USA since the USA does not offer a GDPR equivalent of protection. Most importantly, […]

New Copyright Group Registration

Starting August 2020, the US Copyright Office will offer “Group Registration for Short Online Literary Works.” To qualify, applicants must meet the following requirements:  Word limits: Not less than 50 words, no more than 17,500 words.      2.  Works must be created by same person or group of people.      3.  All works […]

Is the box half full or half empty?

Slack-filled containers lead to misleading advertising lawsuits.  In a recent case, the company was sued for slack filling different pasta boxes, which “constitutes a deceptive business practice.…”  Specifically, the defendant, “…packages these specialized pastas in same-sized boxes, and boxes that appear to be same-sized, but fills them with less pasta.” The company settled the lawsuit, […]

Should foreign governments enjoy sovereign Immunity for commercial activity in the USA?

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) gives foreign governments “presumptive immunity of a foreign state in federal court.”  Of course, like any good law, there are exceptions.  So, when the Welsh Government was sued by a photographer for copyright infringement for using photos in its advertising campaign in the USA promoting tourism, the Welsh Government […]

State Advertising Law Enforcement

Enforcement for Advertising, Marketing and Promotions Law is done by the federal agencies, and the States’  Attorney General offices.  Washington, D.C. (D.C.) filed a lawsuit against a gun manufacturer for false and misleading advertising among other claims. AG’s office stated that “ [t]he District’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA) prohibits a wide variety of deceptive and […]

Enforcement Day!

Welcome to July 1, 2020, enforcement day for CCPA.  Are you compliant? Best business practice is to be CCPA compliant as of today. Is your cookie banner CCPA compliant? Is your Privacy Policy CCPA compliant? Are your Terms and Conditions CCPA compliant? Friendly reminder: Substantiation + transparency = TRUST!  Having legally compliant marketing campaigns and […]

Intellectual Property Clearances

Why are Intellectual Property (IP) clearances so important to every business? From an Advertising Law point of view, it is important to run such clearances to attempt to avoid lawsuits for copyright and/or trademark or even patent infringement. From a business perspective, IP clearance need to be done before incorporating to make sure that your […]

Are you CCPA Compliant?

CCPA Compliant? CCPA enforcement begins July 1, 2020! So, what does that mean to your business? 1. Is your privacy policy updated? 2. Is your point of collection notice ready and deployed? 3. Is your record keeping CCPA compliant? 4. Have you trained your employees on how to be CCPA compliant? Questions/comments? Contact me Best […]