News & Notes

During a White House Roundtable on 8/15/2023, CFPB Director Chopra announced that the CFPB will be developing rules to prevent misuse and abuse by data brokers that track, collect, and monetize information about people. Many of these firms assemble data to feed “artificial intelligence” (AI) that makes decisions about our daily lives.

Congress passed the Integrity, Notification, and Fairness in Online Retail Marketplaces for Consumers Act ("INFORM").

Deficient chatbots that prevent access to live, human support can lead to law violations, diminished service, and other harms. The shift away from relationship banking and toward algorithmic banking will have a number of long-term implications that the CFPB will continue to monitor closely. Chatbots in consumer finance | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/research-reports/chatbots-in-consumer-finance/chatbots-in-consumer-finance/

The Complaint outlines details of Amazon’s knowing failure to address non-consensual subscriptions and cancellation trickery.   The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against Amazon.com, Inc. for its years-long effort to enroll consumers into its Prime program without their consent while knowingly making it difficult for consumers to cancel their subscriptions to Prime. Read more:  FTC Takes […]

Microsoft will pay $20 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting personal information from children who signed up to its Xbox gaming system without notifying their parents or obtaining their parents’ consent, and by illegally retaining children’s personal information.

This week, the Oregon Department of Revenue decided to reject Comcast’s tax con — and you helped make that happen!

The Coalition for Corporate Responsibility — a group of consumer and tax policy organizations that includes the Oregon Consumer League, Tax Fairness Oregon, The Oregon Center for Public Policy, and OSPIRG — submitted a petition that you, and about 2,000 other Oregonians, signed, urging the Department of Revenue to reject Comcast’s appeal.

Oregon Consumer League Warns Consumers About CenturyLink’s Deceptive Billing Practices CenturyLink appears to have a pattern of fraudulently billing customers in two ways:

As more people look for alternative ways to save for retirement, self-directed individual retirement accounts (IRAs) have become increasingly popular. While self-directed IRAs offer investors greater control over their investments, they also come with potential risks and financial losses.