On September 30, the Senate confirmed Rohit Chopra as the new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Chopra’s confirmation marks the beginning of his second stint with the CFPB — Chopra served as the CFPB assistant director between 2010 and June 2015, and had overlapping duties as the student loan ombudsman between October
On September 20, nine Democratic senators wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), requesting that it create new rules to protect consumers’ personal data and privacy.
The senators played on FTC Chair Lina Khan’s aversion to Big Tech and aggressive antitrust agenda, which we discussed in a prior post, by stating that
On September 9, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) released the Model Transmission Modernization Act (model law) in efforts to replace the 50 state-specific money transmitter laws with a nationwide standard. Unless the states adopt the model law, no change will occur to any existing state money transmission laws.
If enacted by the states,
On September 13, President Biden announced his intent to nominate privacy advocate Alvaro Bedoya to serve as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). If confirmed, Bedoya will take the seat currently held by Rohit Chopra, who President Biden has nominated as the next director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), as we
On July 29, the BBB National Programs’ Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) issued revised guidelines for ads directed to children.
CARU helps companies comply with laws and guidelines that protect children from deceptive or inappropriate advertising and ensure that, in an online environment, children’s data is collected and handled responsibly. When advertising or data collection
On July 20, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would restore the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) ability to obtain equitable monetary remedies under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act. The legislation — H.R. 2667, the Consumer Protection and Recovery Act — passed by a vote of 221-205, with all House Democrats and two
Between July 20-22, 2021, state securities regulators in New Jersey, Texas, and Alabama took aim at BlockFi — a cryptocurrency-based platform that has raised $14.7 billion from investors — related to the company’s interest-bearing crypto accounts. This regulatory scrutiny, brought by a bipartisan group of state securities regulators, may prove significant given that state and
On July 19, and just over one year after his office began enforcing the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that he is “seeing great progress” with CCPA enforcement, even while he urged Californians to take advantage of their new rights under the CCPA.
“Enforcement of the CCPA marks an
On July 1, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted to approve seven omnibus resolutions authorizing staff attorneys to use compulsory process to investigate key enforcement targets. The vote fell along party lines, with Democratic Commissioners Lina Khan, Rohit Chopra, and Kelly Slaughter voting in favor of the resolutions, while Republican Commissioners Christine Wilson and Noah
If you use the internet, you have probably encountered at least one of the scams con artists use to bilk victims. There’s “catfishing” and other online dating fraud, where scammers use fake identities to woo victims into sending money. There’s also “grandparent scams,” where typically elderly victims are tricked by those posing as his or her grandchild into sending money for a faux emergency. Cryptocurrency’s recent rise in popularity has seen fraudsters put a twist on the old scams and come up with a new one: cryptocurrency investment schemes. And the Federal Trade Commission and state AGs are taking steps to put the public on notice and minimize consumer harm on this new twist.