Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914

Quote, "The Internet of Things is really intruding into the lives of all Americans.

If there is now a collusion between automakers and insurance companies using data from an unknowing car owner that raises their insurance rates, that's, from my perspective, a potential per se violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act." End quote.

The Federal Trade Commission Act is a federal law that protects the public against unfair and deceptive business practices.

Overall, the intersection of connected car technology and insurance rates poses important questions about transparency and consumer rights.

Our cars can't just be spying on us without our knowledge, and writing it all in the fine print hidden within walls of legal jargon isn't good enough either.

specifically scheduled services.

Roughly two dozen health systems are said to have received warning letters, not making allegations that their price transparency efforts don't meet the standards of the consumer protections of the FTC Act, which is incidentally a more than 100-year-old statute, but rather these letters alert these health systems that this extra layer of compliance is required.

Failure to meet the statutory standards could result in a finding that a hospital is engaging in unfair or deceptive acts or business practices.

So Katie, we can link to this warning letter, but what do you make of this potential new chapter in hospital price transparency?

Yeah, Nick, I think you highlighted some of the areas that are a little surprising to me and really stood out.

First, the language in the letter around compliance being a regulatory floor caught my attention.

The FTC is making a pretty explicit distinction in the letter that compliance with the CMS regulations around price transparency doesn't necessarily mean you've satisfied your obligations under the FTC Act.

And they actually say in the letter that the CMS requirements do not provide a safe harbor from FTC liability.

Yeah.

So the FTC has recently launched investigations sending civil investigative demands to Anthropic, OpenAI, all under Section 5 of the FTC Act, right? Unfair or deceptive acts and practices.

So that was law, what, in 1914? So that's well over 100 years old.

I think it's over 100.

So there you go.

The FTC and the states allege that these practices violate the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act, and state laws.

And understand that There are often state laws regarding pricing of consumer products and consumer goods in stores.

Those are often state laws.

A huge one.

If a general manager trades a $200 meal to a local food blogger for a TikTok post and that influencer fails to clearly and conspicuously disclose the partnership, according to Section 5 of the FTC Act, meaning they don't put hashtag ad or hashtag sponsored clearly in the video, the restaurant itself holds the liability for deceptive marketing practices.

And Eater just reported on the crackdown regarding fake Yelp reviews, too.

Restaurants that get desperate and buy five-star reviews from click farms are now facing severe legal and financial penalties, including complete platform bans and consumer protection lawsuits.

before you put this rule into effect.

Instead, you did a final regulatory analysis without doing the preliminary regulatory analysis, and that wasn't following the law that said there's an FTC Act that created the Federal Trade Commission.

and said that you need to do this preliminary analysis and then this final analysis.

And they basically skipped the preliminary analysis.

And we still have no comprehensive legislation.

We're still largely relying on the FTC Act, which was created over 100 years ago.

To regulate

the Internet.

We found some that Again, I think we're going to talk a little bit more about what that means with respect to the CFAA.

But there's also the Section 5 complaint that we outlined in there in the Federal Trade Commission Act, where there's an unfair and deceptive practice prong where I think might be a little bit more viable, especially now with the accord, which I imagine we'll talk a little bit more in depth later.

But I liken this more towards a strict liability perspective.

Now, I'm not saying we should apply strict liability.

Shortly after taking office for h-his second, her second term-- his second term, President Trump removed Commissioners Slaughter and one other commissioner, Alvar-Varo Bedoya, before the expiration of their statutory seven-year terms.

The FTC Act provides that commissioners may be removed only for, quote, "Inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office," unquote.

President Trump did not invoke any of those statutory grounds.

Instead, he asserted that the, the continued service of these two commissioners was inconsistent with his administration pri-- his administration's priorities and relied directly on his Article Two constitutional authority as the executive.

And so I think it's right to look at that and be concerned about where it could lead.

Yeah.

Second thought, I don't think that the FTC Act is the most vulnerable, and that is because I don't think that unfair methods of competition or unfair and deceptive acts and practices are examples of just completely open-ended, content-less sort of delegations that would be the sort of first place you would go to if you wanted to reevaluate the non-delegation doctrine and make it somewhat more muscular.

And the reason I say that is those are legal standards.