If you follow our blog, you already know that there have been a number of significant developments in the world of advertising law over the past 12 months. In this post, we highlight ten of those developments and consider what they might mean for the future.
- Dark Patterns: Any practices that could manipulate or mislead consumers into taking actions they wouldn’t otherwise take will continue to receive maximum scrutiny from the FTC and state AGs. Over the past year, we saw a new FTC staff report on “dark patterns,” as well as enforcement actions against Vonage and Fareportal. Private plaintiffs (see here and here) as well as consumer advocates are taking note. Companies should give serious consideration in their product interfaces, disclosure and notice design, purchase flows, cancellation methods, auto-renewals, and other consumer communications to any “nudge” activities that could be interpreted as problematic “dark patterns.”
