The Advertising Law Blog provides commentary and news on developing legal issues in advertising, promotional marketing, Internet, and privacy law. This blog is sponsored by the Advertising, Marketing & Promotions group at Olshan. The practice is geared to servicing the needs of the advertising, promotional marketing, and digital industries with a commitment to providing personal, efficient and effective legal service.
The FTC's Red Flags Rule (http://www.ftc.gov/redflagsrule), which requires covered organizations to implement a written identity thefts prevention program, is slated to go into effect on June 1, 2010.
Companies charging their customers annual membership fees should take notice of a recent lawsuit that cost retail giant Costco quite a bit of money.
Andrew Lustigman to present on Sweepstakes and Contest Promotions on the Domestic and International Scene at the May 12, 2010 meeting of the International Intellectual Property Society.
In response to a call by four U.S. senators and others for greater oversight into the use of personal information by social networks like Facebook, the FTC announced Tuesday (according to the Washington Post) that it was going to examine these networks' collection and use of data and "develop a framework governing privacy going forward."
Response Magazine article entitled "Legal Review: New Jersey Attorney Targets Marketers in Putative Class Actions" is now online.
In addition to the ongoing fight between Amazon.com and states seeking to levy sales taxes based on its associates (affiliate) program, the retailer has recently brought a lawsuit against the state of North Carolina.
At the recent ABA Roundtable on Social Media Law co-sponsored by The Lustigman Firm, one of the topics of discussion was the FTC's enforcement of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 ("COPPA").
On March 9, 2010 the identity theft protection service, LifeLock, settled charges made by the Federal Trade Commission and 35 states alleging that the company made false claims.
New York led the way with its "Amazon Tax," which extended "nexus" for sales tax purposes to the 3rd party affiliates who referred deals to Amazon.com via its Associates Program, leading to a lawsuit from Amazon and other retailers.
On February 24, after a case lasting more than two years, an Italian court convicted three Google executives, including its global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer, of criminal invasion of privacy, and sentenced the men to six months in jail (although the sentences were automatically suspended under Italian law).