Terms & Conditions

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Companies may spend significant time and resources carefully drafting their online terms and conditions, but those terms will not do much good if consumers are not adequately put on notice of them. A recent Ninth Circuit decision provides another reminder that courts will look closely not only at what an online disclosure says but also at how and where it appears.

In Schlueter-Beckner v. SimpliSafe, Inc., consumers filed a putative class action relating to their purchases of SimpliSafe home security systems and monitoring services. SimpliSafe moved to compel arbitration based on its online Terms of Sale and Terms of Service. Consumers encountered those terms at two different points—when purchasing the hardware and when later enrolling in a trial of SimpliSafe’s alarm-monitoring services.

Continue Reading Online Terms and Conditions: Why Presentation Matters

The Ninth Circuit has never been shy about declining to compel arbitration, and the Court has issued multiple cases outlining what constitutes sufficient notice of certain provisions in consumer-facing terms and conditions, including website terms and conditions.

Just last year, in Berman v. Freedom Financial Network LLC, the Court agreed that a motion to compel arbitration should be denied where the plaintiff alleged that he did not see a notice stating, “I understand and agree to the Terms & Conditions which includes mandatory arbitration.”

The Court noted that the text that purported to notify users that they were agreeing to a mandatory arbitration provision was displayed “in a tiny gray font considerably smaller than the font used in the surrounding website elements, and indeed in a font so small that it is barely legible to the naked eye.” The Court further criticized how the notice was “further deemphasized by the overall design of the webpage, in which other visual elements draw the user’s attention away from the barely readable critical text.”

Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Rejects Dark Patterns Challenge to Arbitration Agreement

Last week, the FTC brought and settled enforcement actions against two manufacturing companies for allegedly limiting customers’ right to repair purchased products under unlawful warranty terms. The FTC alleged that the two companies, Harley-Davidson Motor Company Group, LLC (a motorcycle manufacturer) and MWE Investments, LLC (a Westinghouse outdoor generator maker), acted illegally when using voidable warranties that required customers to use manufacturer-supplied parts and service instead of allowing customers to use independent dealers to either supply parts or perform repairs. In the settlements, the FTC ordered both companies to remove these warranty terms, admit to customers what they did, and ensure fair competition between dealers and independent third parties providing repair services and parts.

According to the FTC’s complaints against Harley-Davidson and MWE Investments, the companies’ unlawful warranty terms violated the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act for conditioning warranty coverage on using the companies’ respective parts or services without either seeking the FTC’s waiver or providing the parts or services free of charge under the warranty. The FTC also alleged the manufacturers acted deceptively in failing to disclose these conditions properly. The FTC alleged that Harley-Davidson also violated the FTC’s Rule Governing Disclosure of Written Consumer Warranty Terms and Conditions (“Disclosure Rule”) when it failed to provide a single document containing the warranty terms, so customers would need to contact authorized dealers to understand the full terms of their warranties.

Continue Reading Repair Your Warranty Terms: FTC Takes Action Against Unlawful Repair Restrictions

As part of the 2019 year-end congressional appropriations wrap-up free-for-all, Congress adopted a new Section 642 of the Communications Act that significantly changes how a cable operator advertises and bills video subscribers. The law applies to both stand-alone video programming packages and the video portion of bundled plans that combine video programming with broadband Internet service.

Under the law, cable operators must change their billing practices as follows by June 20, 2020.Continue Reading Congress Adopts New Cable Operator Advertising and Billing Requirements Affecting Both Video and Broadband Internet Offerings

Subscription merchants that take payment by Visa cards will have new acceptance, disclosure, and cancellation requirements imposed on their transactions beginning April 18, 2020. As Visa recently announced, the card brand is updating its rules for merchants that offer free trials or introductory offers as part of an ongoing subscription program.

The Visa rules follow on the heels of similar Mastercard rules that became effective earlier this year. However, while MasterCard’s rules focus on merchants selling subscriptions for physical goods, Visa’s rules apply to merchants selling either physical or digital products if the merchant offers a free trial or introductory offer that rolls into an ongoing subscription arrangement.

The new requirements are more specific than what the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA) prescribes, and while they don’t have the force of law, noncompliance could put a merchant’s credit card processing capabilities at risk. Here are some of the components of the new Visa rules:Continue Reading New Requirements for Subscription Merchants Accepting Visa Cards

Everyone thinks that when the federal government shuts down, nothing happens in Washington. Not true. Last week, following in the footsteps of other states, the District of Columbia passed a new law regulating automatic renewal offers. The law affects all companies that sell goods or services pursuant to a contract that automatically renews at the end of a definite term. Although the law mirrors other states’ laws in some respects, it creates much stricter requirements in others.

First, similar to other states’ requirements, the law requires advertisers who sell goods or services on an automatic renewal basis to clearly and conspicuously disclose the automatic renewal provision and cancellation procedure in the contract.Continue Reading New Automatic Renewal Law Takes Effect in D.C.

Over the past few years, class action plaintiffs have filed a slew of lawsuits against online retailers under the New Jersey Truth in Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act (TCCWNA), which prohibits a seller from offering or entering into consumer contracts that contain any term that violates a “clearly established” New Jersey or federal law. Violations are punishable by a maximum civil penalty of $100, actual damages, or both, and private actions can be brought by “aggrieved consumers” (more on that later).

TCCWNA has been around for years, but class action plaintiffs started using the statute to sue online retailers based solely upon their website terms and conditions without suffering any other injury. From what many retailers can tell, the plaintiffs did this by searching for and then challenging indemnification clauses, limitations of liability, and disclaimers of warranties in website terms of use and terms of sale, merely for the purpose of filing lawsuits.Continue Reading New Jersey Truth in Consumer Contract Warranty and Notice Act: New Jersey Supreme Court Holds That Injury Is Required

Opting OutWhat do golf and sex have in common? According to the old joke: They’re two things you don’t have to be good at to enjoy. Similarly, some men – ok, most men – tend to exaggerate their prowess at both. You can add one more common trait: The FTC scrutinizes online continuity offers for the accessories associated with both, as the FTC last week settled a case involving lingerie and we blogged previously about the FTC’s golf ball ROSCA case, which settled recently. One final note on the connectivity between golf and lingerie: Supermodel and actress Kelly Rohrbach appeared in lingerie on the AdoreMe site and played college golf.

On November 20th, the FTC filed suit in New York against an online seller of lingerie for violating the FTC Act and Section 5 of the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA). According to the complaint, AdoreMe generates most of its revenue from its “VIP members.” For $39.95 a month, VIP members receive discounted prices, but are not charged if they buy apparel within the first five days of each month or affirmatively click a button to skip that month. If a consumer forgets to click the button or buy something within the first five days, the amount becomes store credit that supposedly can be used at any time. However, according to the FTC, many consumers were surprised to learn that the store credit could not be used at any time. The FTC alleged that AdoreMe failed to disclose that if a consumer cancelled their VIP membership, their store credit would be forfeited. The FTC sought $1.3 million for the forfeited store credit.Continue Reading Sex, Golf, and the FTC

healthcare and fitness appsLast week, in an ironic twist of fate, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charged the operators of the Pact Mobile App, which paid consumers for keeping their fitness promises and charged consumers who missed their goals, for failing to honor its promises to consumers.

According to the FTC’s complaint, when consumers signed up for the Pact App (formerly GymPact), consumers provided the app with their payment card information and set a workout or fitness goal. When signing up, users specified an amount of money the app could deduct if the user missed a workout or fitness goal for the week. The charges ranged from $5 to $50 per missed activity. If, on the other hand, the user achieved the goal, Pact would pay them. To track consumers’ compliance with their goals, Pact required users to check in at gyms using their phones’ GPS. Pact also allowed consumers to set other goals, using the app’s VeggiePact and FoodLoggingPacts options.Continue Reading Mobile App Settles Charges with FTC that it Broke Pact with Consumers