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California Senate Bill 206,[1] the “Fair Pay to Play Act,” was amended again last month, and is making its way through the legislature under sponsorship by Sen. Nancy Skinner-D and Sen. Steven Bradford-D. If passed, the new law would pave the way for college athletes in California to earn compensation—including a stipend or other financial incentive from the college itself—for licensing their name, image, or likeness. The law would also allow athletes to obtain legal representation in connection with their participation in college sports, all while maintaining scholarship eligibility and amateurism under the National Collegiate Athletics Association’s (NCAA) Division I and II eligibility criteria.[2]
Continue Reading Faces and Names: Modern Issues in Athlete Publicity Licensing

The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program recently warned that it will require interest-based video ads to provide transparency and control to viewers by April 1, 2018.

The Accountability Program, a service of the Better Business Bureau that regulates online behavioral advertising, has previously enforced the Digital Advertising Alliance’s self-regulatory principles for interest-based advertising (DAA Principles) with respect to behavioral advertising across websites, mobile apps and across multiple devices associated with the same person, but it has refrained from enforcing the principles with respect to online video ads to allow the video ad marketplace to innovate and mature. Due to the exponential growth of online video ad spend, the Accountability Program says that the time is now right to set a date for enforcement.
Continue Reading New Compliance Warning: Interest-Based Video Ads Must Provide Notice and Choice

Enforcement of the Digital Advertising Alliance “Application of the Principles of Transparency and Control to Data Used Across Devices” (DAA Cross-Device Principles) officially began on February 1, just a week after the FTC issued a staff report discussing the application of the FTC Online Behavioral Advertising Principles in the context of “Cross Device Tracking” and suggesting that the DAA Cross-Device Principles, while commendable, could be stronger.
Continue Reading FTC / DAA Extend Data Privacy Focus to Cross-Device Tracking

The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled this morning that the Safe Harbor regime, which enables transatlantic data transfers from the European Union to the United States, is invalid, thereby giving each national supervisory authority the chance to revisit the question of whether the U. S. provides an adequate level of protection for EU citizens’ data.  A copy of the decision be found here.
Continue Reading US Safe Harbor Regime Invalidated by Europe’s Highest Court

To the consternation of many, California law has long imposed a “Made in the U.S.A.” standard that has been more stringent than the federal standard, requiring manufacturers of all types who wanted to make a country of origin claim to adopt duel sets of packaging and labeling materials – one for California and one for the rest of the country. But California has now amended its “Made in the U.S.A. law” and taken a step toward the mainstream. On Tuesday, September 1, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 633, amending a portion of California’s Business & Professions Code known as the “Made in the U.S.A.” law. This amendment marks a break for California manufacturers and marketers, as it relaxes California’s standard for merchandise labeled as “Made in the U.S.A.” and aligns the state’s requirement more closely with the federal standard, widely followed by other states.  
Continue Reading California Relaxes Its “Made in the U.S.A.” Law

On June 23, 2015, the Ninth Circuit in Cabral v. Supple LLC, — Fed. Appx. –, 2015 WL 3855142 (9th Cir. June 23, 2015) placed a significant hurdle in the path of false advertising class actions.  Specifically, the Court held that in class actions “based upon alleged misrepresentations in advertising and the like,” in order for common questions to predominate—an essential Rule 23(b) inquiry—“it is critical that the misrepresentation in question be made to all of the class members.”
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit to False Advertising Class Actions: Drop Dead

On Tuesday, July 29, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit “clarified certain aspects of [its] false advertising jurisprudence” and held that, where literal falsity and deliberate deception have been proved in a market with only two players, it is appropriate to use legal presumptions of consumer confusion and injury for the purposes of finding liability in a false advertising case brought under the Lanham Act.[1]
Continue Reading Second Circuit Clarifies the Use of Legal Presumptions of Consumer Confusion and Injury in Certain Lanham Act Cases

On Thursday, June 27, 2013, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced that Mortgage Investors Corporation of Ohio, Inc. (“Mortgage Investors”) will pay a $7.5 million civil penalty for alleged violations of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (“TSR”). This settlement marks the largest fine that the FTC has ever collected for TSR violations and cleverly coincides with the 10th Anniversary of the National Do Not Call Registry.
Continue Reading ‘Do Not Call’ Violations Lead to $7.5 Million Civil Penalty