Legislatures, regulators, and enforcement agencies across the United States and in Germany have turned up the heat on subscription plans within the past year by updating their automatic renewal law (ARL). California and Germany have new ARL requirements starting July 1, 2022. Generally, an automatic renewal or negative option is a paid subscription plan that
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) held an open meeting focused on issues related to children’s privacy and those pertaining to the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. In the meeting, the FTC adopted a new policy statement targeting data collection practices in educational technology. Further, the FTC proposed amendments to the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (“Endorsement Guides”) which would target child-directed marketing. Of note, one of the amendments would recognize that children may react to advertising practices differently than adults and thus advertising practices directed towards children may be treated differently by the FTC compared to those practices directed towards adults.
Continue Reading FTC Targets Children’s Privacy and Stealth Advertising Directed at Children
The FTC’s recent policy statement on the Health Breach Notification Rule (the “Rule”) substantially impacts the consumer-facing digital health industry by significantly expanding (a) the scope of entities subject to the Rule and (b) data practices that constitute a breach. Under the new guidance, any entity that collects health data from both a connected device and the consumer (excluding entities already subject to HIPAA) will be treated as a “vendor of Personal Health Records” (“PHR Vendor”) subject to the Rule. Moreover, PHR Vendors that share such information without the individual’s authorization will trigger the Rule’s breach notification requirements.
Continue Reading FTC Policy Statement Substantially Expands Scope of Personal Health Record Vendor Rules
One of the main issues facing the enforcement of competition laws, and corresponding compliance efforts, in digital markets is the inherent global nature of the conduct of digital markets players. As the OECD noted in this respect, “Governments may need to enhance co-operation across national competent agencies to address competition issues that are increasingly transnational in scope or involve global firms.” Against this backdrop, the US, EU and UK competition agencies have recently issued joint statements to re-affirm their commitment to cooperate in this area. This blog post provides a short commentary and shows that… there is more in those statements than meets the eye.
Continue Reading Transatlantic Cooperation and Enforcement in Digital Markets