Last week, New York lawmakers announced a bill aimed at imposing sustainability reporting requirements on the fashion industry. If passed, the Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act would generally require major...more
State Attorneys General are already off to the races in 2022 – both with a significant number of election campaigns in full swing and an uptick in their consumer protection enforcement efforts. As a result, State AG consumer...more
Last week, Jessica Rich wrote about the FTC’s rulemaking plans for 2022. Make sure you read that post for a detailed analysis of what the Commission is planning. As we looked at which of those topics have generated the most...more
In a post last week, we looked at NAD’s review of Everlane’s green claims relating to the company’s use of recycled plastic in its products and its aspirational goals to remove virgin plastic from its entire supply chain by...more
Subscription services and other automatic renewals continue to be a hot topic, at both the federal and state levels. The FTC recently announced that it was going to increase its enforcement against companies that don’t comply...more
As advertisers wait to see what the FTC will do after sending 700 warning letters related to influencers and incentivized reviews, the NAD has been resolving disputes on similar issues. Yesterday, NAD announced a new decision...more
As fashion companies begin to make more claims about what they are doing to help the environment, they need to make sure they’re in good position to support those claims with strong evidence. We previously posted about a...more
Earlier today, the FTC issued a policy statement warning marketers against using “dark patterns” to trick or trap consumers into subscription services. The statement is primarily intended to assist marketers by providing...more
In 2017, California updated its automatic renewal law to create some of the strictest requirements in the country. Now, just four years later, the Governor Newsom signed a new law that will impose even stricter requirements....more
As we have noted in earlier posts, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s holding that Section 13(b) of the FTC Act does not allow for monetary restitution, the Federal Trade Commission has been attempting to creatively utilize...more
Last week, California’s Governor signed a law that will likely impose significant limitations on companies’ abilities to make recyclability claims or use the popular “chasing arrows” symbol in California....more
Last week, we posted about an NAD case involving green claims that Georgia-Pacific made for its Quilted Northern Ultra Soft & Strong Bathroom Tissue. In that post, we examined issues related to how a company substantiates...more
As more companies develop Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) goals and advertise their progress towards those goals, we’re starting to see more challenges to those ads. Most of the challenges come from plaintiffs’...more
This summer, the NCAA suspended its long-standing policy that restricted student-athletes from being able to generate income from their name, image, and likeness (commonly referred to as “NIL”). It didn’t take brands long to...more
Last year, we posted about how some companies had retroactively changed their refund policies after COVID-19 hit, and we noted some of the potential pitfalls associated with that strategy. Lawsuits and regulatory...more
This summer, a plaintiff filed a class action lawsuit against Allbirds, alleging (among other things) that the company’s environmental claims – including claims about its “sustainable” practices, the “low carbon footprint” of...more
In February, we posted that the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (or “CARU”) was in the process of updating its Guidelines for ads directed to children. The Guidelines had last been updated in 2006, and advertisers often...more
Earlier this year, Prose – a company that makes customized haircare products – brought an NAD challenge against Function – a competitor in the same business – over Function’s claims that it had over 110,000 5-star product...more
Last week, NAD announced a decision involving a series of AT&T Fiber ads that holds important lessons for companies that make comparative performance claims.
Each of the ads depicts a funny scene in which a cable user is...more
Earlier this month, the nonprofit Earth Island Institute filed a lawsuit against Coca-Cola, alleging that the company falsely and deceptively represents itself as “a sustainable and environmentally friendly company, despite...more
In recent years, plaintiffs’ attorneys have found that filing website accessibility cases can be a lucrative business model. By doing a quick scan of a website and then copying and pasting from other complaints, these...more
When it comes to the legal side of working with influencers, smart companies focus on ensuring that influencers clearly disclose that they are working with the company. After all, that’s where regulators have focused most of...more
Function claimed that it had “over 110,000 5-star product reviews” for its hair care products, the majority of which come from its “shampoo and conditioner” category. A competitor filed an NAD challenge pointing out that the...more
As part of its routine monitoring program, NAD asked ACT to provide substantiation for statements the company made online about its standardized college entrance test. NAD was concerned about whether ACT sufficiently...more
The American Association of Orthodontists ran a series of social media ads for Happy Mouth Now, a fictional teledentistry company, which showed consumers struggling with the company’s products. The ads are funny, unless you...more