Hunton Retail Law Resource

Resuming its efforts to combat unscrupulous cash advance practices, on November 5, 2024, the FTC filed a complaint against Dave, Inc. (“Dave”), a Delaware fintech corporation that operates a mobile application it advertises as offering “instant” short-term advances. 

In a rare 5-0 vote, the Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with GGL Projects, Inc., which runs the AI-enabled customer review platform Sitejabber. The Sitejabber service star-rates businesses and offers customer reviews. Businesses can create free profile pages on the Sitejabber platform, and also are able to purchase additional services like automatic instant survey review requests, marketing tools, and social media sharing to publicize positive feedback.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has continued to clarify when a court can consider the back label of a product in connection with a false advertising claim.  Misleading label information is a common basis for false advertising suits, especially under California’s Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law, and Consumer Legal Remedies Act. However, in recent decisions, the court has detailed new circumstances in which a label might be saved.

In a significant move, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued its final “Click-to-Cancel” Rule aimed at streamlining the cancellation process for subscription services. This Rule is a critical development for retailers, particularly those utilizing negative option marketing—where customers are automatically enrolled in subscriptions and must actively cancel to stop payments.

We recently posted an article on Hunton’s Insurance Recovery Blog about a new Illinois Appellate Court decision that offers concrete direction for retail policyholders evaluating their exposure under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).  

We recently posted an article on Hunton’s Privacy & Information Security Law Blog on a newly issued federal district court opinion citing that New York City’s “Consumer Data Law” violated the First Amendment and the regulation of commercial speech.  A federal judge declared the municipal law requiring food-delivery companies to share customer data with restaurants unconstitutional.

Coming on the heels of its Social Media Data Practices report, the FTC announced that it will hold a virtual workshop on February 25, 2025 examining “The Attention Economy: Monopolizing Kids’ Time Online.” The event will convene researchers, technologists, child development and legal experts, consumer advocates and industry professionals to discuss design features that keep children and teens engaged online. The topics to be covered include research relating to whether certain features lead to more engagement, the psychological and physical impacts of design features on youth well-being, and the intersection between design, well-being, and the law. The FTC is taking expressions of interest from potential panelists until November 15, 2024.

The FTC has settled a case with a company operating an artificial intelligence-enabled “writing assistant” service. Among the use cases Rytr LLC offered was one that would craft testimonials and reviews, allowing users to select desired tone (e.g., “formal,” “funny,” “convincing”), keywords and phrases, level of creativity (e.g., “optimal,” “high,” “max”), and the number of reviews sought. Based on this user input, Rytr’s AI service would then generate genuine-sounding, detailed reviews quickly and with little user effort.

In California, shoppers will no longer be offered plastic bags at the grocery store checkout. Under a new law, effective January 1, 2026, single-use shopping bags are banned from any point of sale. This includes bags made from plastic, paper, or other materials that are not recycled paper or certified reusable bags. However, the ban does not apply to bags used before the point of sale, such as produce bags and overwrap for fresh meat.

Last summer, on June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. Although the decision did not address diversity, equity and inclusion (“DEI”) initiatives outside of the higher education context, parallels were immediately drawn to corporate DEI programs. Over the past year, conservative activist groups have challenged a variety of corporate DEI initiatives, and although this has resulted in a mixed bag of success, companies should be thoughtful about their DEI approaches moving forward as ...