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.
For foreign trademark owners filing a US application through WIPO seems the obvious choice due to the ease and apparent limited cost of filing. However, US trademark law differs in a number of ways from many countries and a WIPO filing rather than national may be more troublesome (and expensive) than it seems.
The FTC’s long-awaited Final Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees went into effect on May 12, 2025. The Final Rule seeks to eliminate “bait and switch” or “drip” pricing and instill transparency in connection with the offering of live ticketing events and short-term lodging. The Final Rule builds on certain state pricing transparency laws, such as those in effect in California and Minnesota, whose requirements apply to transactions beyond those identified by the FTC.
As we have reported previously, at the end of 2025, the Lina Khan-led Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) completed the process of updating its Negative Option Rule by finalizing the Rule Concerning Recurring Subscriptions and Other Negative Option Programs (the “Final Rule”). The Final Rule’s expansive prohibition against misrepresenting any material fact made while marketing using a negative option feature went into effect on January 14, 2025, with the balance of the substantive requirements scheduled to go into effect this week on May 14, 2025. These provisions include the requirements to obtain a consumer’s express informed consent to the negative option feature before charging the consumer and to provide consumers with a simple mechanism to cancel the recurring charges.
Chair of Olshan's Advertising, Marketing & Promotions Group and Co-Chair of the firm’s Brand Management & Protection Group Andrew Lustigman will participate in a panel discussion at ACI’s Legal and Regulatory Think Tank for Working with Influencers, which will be held virtually on July 16, 2025, at 2:00 P.M.
Litigation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) is experiencing a notable shift, with an increasing number of class action lawsuits targeting businesses for sending marketing text messages outside of federally mandated "quiet hours." These quiet-hour restrictions—outlined in 47 C.F.R. §64.1200(c)(1)—prohibit marketing calls or texts before 8:00 a.m. and after 9:00 p.m. local time. Complicating things even further, several states have different time-of-day or day-of-week restrictions different from the federal TCPA.