Join us as we offer a sneak peek into select chapters from the newly released 14th edition of Venable’s Advertising Law Tool Kit, which helps marketing teams navigate their organization’s legal risk. Want more? Click here to download the entire Tool Kit.

Fee Disclosures

When customers check out, they are used to seeing a list of fees accompanying the primary product or service. Businesses often add these fees for a variety of reasons, and they can go by a variety of names: service fees, convenience fees, or processing fees. While these fees can serve legitimate business purposes, the Federal Trade Commission regulates how these fees are presented to customers for specific industries through targeted rules such as Trade Regulation Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees and has broad authority to combat unfair and deceptive pricing acts or practices through Section 5 of the FTC Act.

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A recent review of civil filings in Washington, DC reveals a conspicuous pattern challenging strike-through pricing: a single nonprofit plaintiff, represented by a small group of attorneys, has filed more than 150 lawsuits against online retailers across the country—many of them small businesses.

Surge in DC CPPA Pricing Lawsuits

A DC-based organization is filing the wave of lawsuits under the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA). The lawsuits challenge so-called reference pricing, strikethrough, or “sale” pricing. They allege misleading price comparisons, failure to disclose material facts, and ambiguous representations that tend to mislead. The letters typically seek statutory damages of $1,500 per product purchased, plus attorneys’ fees. The plaintiffs allege that selling into DC is enough to create nationwide exposure.

Continue Reading Online Retailers Face Rising Risk from Strike-Through Pricing Claims

Negotiating a cross-border, U.S./U.K. advertising agency services agreement adds some additional wrinkles to the already well-wrinkled list of considerations for every ad agency contract. Obviously, extra consideration must be paid to things like privacy and data security, but more prosaic considerations include termination with/without cause, choice of law, and whether to arbitrate disputes. While all commercial contract negotiations are, to some degree, an attempt to see into the future and address foreseeable disputes, knowing the differences between U.S. and U.K. law can be highly beneficial to clients involved in these situations.   

U.S. vs. U.K. Contract Law: Good Faith Differences

There is a significant distinction between U.S. and U.K. law with respect to, very simply, acting “fairly.” The U.S. legal system widely imputes in all contracts the concept of an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, where parties are obligated to act in good faith with respect to the other party. This concept, however, is not recognized by the U.K. legal system. For U.S. companies operating under a contract governed by U.K. law, it may be that the parties have more freedom to act in a way that would be perceived as unfair, as long as a strict reading of the contract would permit such unfair conduct.

Continue Reading U.S. vs. UK Contract Law in Advertising Agency Agreements Explained

New York City is poised to strengthen local enforcement of autorenewal and subscription programs, largely mirroring and operationalizing requirements already imposed under New York’s autorenewal law.

On April 8, the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), led by Commissioner Samuel Levine, published a proposed “Click-to-Cancel” rule that would require any business offering autorenewal programs to New York City consumers, regardless of where the business itself is located, to make canceling subscription services as easy as enrollment.

Continue Reading New York City Proposes Strict Click-to-Cancel Subscription Requirements

Join us as we offer a sneak peek into select chapters from the newly released 14th edition of Venable’s Advertising Law Tool Kit, which helps marketing teams navigate their organization’s legal risk. Want more? Click here to download the entire Tool Kit.

Commercial email marketing poses private litigation risks and regulatory hurdles that should be considered before launching any campaign to ensure compliance. The Federal Trade Commission Act requires truthful and non-misleading advertising, and the Federal CAN-SPAM Act prohibits false or deceptive email headers (which are generally defined as the sending domain names and “from” lines) and subject lines, requires opt-out options, and mandates identification of commercial emails as advertising.

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After the Supreme Court’s decision invalidating tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the plaintiffs’ bar has found a new hook for challenges affecting retailers. The litigation risk is landing not just on importers seeking refunds from the government, but on retailers, marketplaces, and service providers that passed tariff costs through to consumers. Unfortunately, this means that many companies affected by the tariffs in the first instance will now be hit by another target.

On February 20, the Supreme Court held that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs, invalidating a broad swath of tariffs imposed in 2025. (Watch a recording of this webinar to learn more.) IEEPA-based tariffs were terminated shortly after the decision, and the ruling created significant refund exposure. Critically, the Court did not address how refunds should be handled. That last point is the opening plaintiffs’ lawyers are using.

Continue Reading IEEPA Tariffs Invalidated: Rising Class Action Risk for Consumer Pricing

From one-click checkouts to autofilled payment fields, the modern payment experience is built on convenience. Consumers have come to expect that apps, websites, and even their mobile devices will seamlessly store and deploy their payment credentials with minimal friction. But beneath this ease lies a growing legal tension, particularly in subscriptions and automatic renewals programs, where sales and marketing laws require clear disclosures before obtaining the consumer’s billing information.

ROSCA Compliance and Subscription Disclosure Timing

The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) lawsuit against Uber Technologies illustrates how this tension plays out in practice. The case focuses on Uber’s “Uber One” subscription program and how subscription enrollment is embedded within an app ecosystem where users have already stored payment credentials for one-off transactions. Under the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA), material subscription terms must be disclosed before obtaining consumers’ billing information.

Continue Reading Stored Payment Credentials and ROSCA: Lessons from the FTC’s Uber Case

Last week, a federal judge in the Northern District of California ruled on Uber’s motion to dismiss a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging deceptive practices in connection with its Uber One subscription program. The complaint alleged violations of the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA) and deceptive advertising and marketing misrepresentations in violation of Section 5(a) of the FTC Act and numerous state laws.

FTC Uber Lawsuit and ROSCA Claims

The court granted in part and denied in part the motion to dismiss. The court granted the motion to dismiss as to only two discrete aspects of the complaint. First, it dismissed the FTC’s subclaim challenging Uber’s “$0 delivery fee” representation, holding that the statement was not misleading as a matter of law because it was expressly limited to “eligible” orders and therefore would not lead a reasonable consumer to believe all orders qualified.

Continue Reading FTC v. Uber: California Court Allows Claims against Uber One Subscription to Proceed

On March 13, the Trump administration issued an executive order (EO), “Ensuring Truthful Advertising of Products Claiming to be Made in America,” aimed at ensuring products advertised as “Made in America” or “Made in USA” are actually made in the United States.

The EO directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to prioritize enforcement of unfair or deceptive “Made in America” or “Made in the USA” or any similar U.S.-origin claims and to consider proposing regulations that would require online marketplaces to establish procedures for verifying country-of-origin claims.   

Additionally, the EO requires agencies with oversight of country-of-origin labeling, in consultation with the FTC, to consider promulgating regulations that promote voluntary country-of-origin labeling for products made or manufactured in the U.S.

Continue Reading FTC Targets “Made in USA” Claims Under New Executive Order

Join us as we offer a sneak peek into select chapters from the newly released 14th edition of Venable’s Advertising Law Tool Kit, which helps marketing teams navigate their organization’s legal risk. Want more? Click here to download the entire Tool Kit.

Advertising Claims Substantiation

Objective advertising claims must be supported by prior substantiation. These claims—whether express or implied—generally concern measurable or otherwise verifiable attributes of a dietary supplement, food, device, or cosmetic. When an advertisement includes such claims, marketers must have a “reasonable basis” for them. As a general guideline, a reasonable basis means possessing the level and type of substantiation that experts in the relevant field would consider adequate to support the claim. Extra caution is required for health-related claims, including structure/function claims, or other assertions that consumers cannot readily assess for themselves (such as statements that a product “supports normal cholesterol levels”) which must be supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence. The amount and type of evidence needed will depend on the nature of the claim and what experts in the field would deem appropriate. This is a flexible standard and does not necessarily require a product-specific clinical study

Continue Reading Inside the Ad Law Tool Kit: Advertising Claim Substantiation