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.
Georgia has recently passed new legislation aimed at regulating the use of automatic renewal provisions in service contracts.
The FTC has proposed new amendments to the Telemarketing Sales Rule. Importantly, the proposed changes would bar non-traditional payment mechanisms such as remotely created checks. The proposed rules also clarify other provisions of the Rule.
As a reminder, last year the FCC revised its rules for auto-dialed calls to completely eliminate the established business relationship (EBR) exemption for calls to landline numbers. The new regulations go into effect on October 16, 2013.
On April 26, 2013 Vermont enacted a law that now allows a contest sponsor to require an entrant to pay an entry fee or purchase a product to enter a skill contest or other promotion where the winner is not determined based on chance.
In Standard Mutual Insurance v. Ted Lay Real Estate, decided on May 23, 2013, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the TCPA's $500-per-call damages provision is not punitive in nature. The significance of this ruling is that, at least in Illinois, TCPA damages can be insured by marketers.
On May 9, 2013, the FCC clarified the extent to which sellers can be held liable for robo-calls and texts sent by third-party marketers on their behalf.