Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
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Columnist Debra Saunders quotes me on the Federal Trade Commission’s extraction of $40 million from a shoe maker for hyping its sneakers in its ads. As Saunders points out, we rely on Washington, D.C. for help on issues like this since if there’s anything the political class is earnestly opposed to, it’s overpromising. [San Francisco Chronicle]
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In the face of substantial Congressional opposition (although an earlier Congress had helped push for the idea in the first place) the Federal Trade Commission may be easing off its zeal for tougher federal oversight of cereal ads and the like. [Glenn Lammi, Washington Legal Foundation]
An Arizona lawmaker has proposed (how many regrettable stories begin with that lead-in!) a crackdown on looks-enhancement in advertising. “House Bill 2793, proposed by Rep. Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix, would require advertisers who alter or enhance a photo to put a disclaimer on that ad alerting customers that ‘Postproduction techniques were made to alter the appearance in this advertisement. When using this product, similar results may not be achieved.’” [Arizona Republic via Coyote, earlier (and compare)]
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A Los Angeles couple have been gaining publicity for their proposal to require publications to disclose with warning labels when pictures of models have been Photoshopped, the better to help the bodily self-esteem of readers who may feel inadequate when contemplating the skinny/curvaceous images or airbrushed complexions. [CBS New York] “After complaints from Liberal Democrat MP Joe Swinson, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority banned two digitally enhanced ads starring prominent celebrities for ‘exaggeration and being misleading.’” [Diana Denza, Betty Confidential; earlier on parallel developments in France as well as Britain]
Incidentally, I’ve now compiled a long-overdue tag for posts on photography.
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A plaintiff’s-oriented group crusading for such legislation managed to come up with only a relative handful of employer advertisements exhibiting supposed bias against the unemployed. And on scrutiny not all of those ads turned out in fact to be “exclusionary”:
For example, national recruiter Kelly Services placed the following ad in the St. Louis area: “Currently employed but lacking growth in terms of responsibilities and technical proficiencies? If so, Kelly IT Resources-St. Louis wants to talk to you!” NELP zeroed in on “currently employed,” counted it as discriminatory, and ignored the rest of the posting. Common sense dictates that marketing to the currently employed looking to advance does not signal a rejection of the unemployed.
[Michael Saltsman, Wall Street Journal, earlier here, etc.]
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Beyond satire: “Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month. …NHS health guidelines state clearly that drinking water helps avoid dehydration, and that Britons should drink at least 1.2 litres per day.” [Telegraph] A writer in the Guardian defends the ban.
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The official Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is menacing businesses with audits, “substantiation notices” and potentially stiff fines if they tell customers — even over the phone or in emails — that future price hikes on goods or services are the result of the nation’s newly adopted carbon tax. I discuss at Cato at Liberty (& Mark Hemingway, Weekly Standard).
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The promotional claims that General Mills makes about its snack product seem to be accurate enough, but the busybody Center for Science in the Public Interest says the company should be calling attention to other, less positive nutritional facts too. Stephen Richer wonders whether dating profiles are going to have to begin listing the candidate’s less appealing qualities. [WLF Legal Pulse]
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Sarah Deming has sued the distributor of the critically acclaimed Ryan Gosling thriller DRIVE under Michigan’s Consumer Protection Act, saying it was promoted “as very similar to the Fast and Furious, or similar, series of movies” but “bore very little similarity to a chase, or race action film…having very little driving in the motion picture.” The suit aims for class-action status. [Lawyerist, Guardian]
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Settling a lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission, the maker of the drink agrees to warn on its label that it really has quite a lot of alcohol in it and can get you tipsy without having to go back often for refills. As Elie Mystal notes, the “warning” might fit rather nicely into the beverage’s marketing strategy. Scott Greenfield has thought of a parallel case.
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The Food and Drug Administration substantially restricts food companies’ freedom to promote their wares as not-genetically-modified, although quite a lot of grocery shoppers are (perhaps misguidedly) interested in making product decisions on that basis. Thom Lambert at Truth on the Market detects the symptoms of regulatory “capture.”
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The FDA has moved to require tobacco marketers to place grotesque photos of cadavers and body parts on cigarette packs, and Barton Hinkle of the Richmond Times-Dispatch thinks there’s no reason for it to end there. More: Ann Althouse.
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Public-spirited litigants Western Sugar Cooperative, Michigan Sugar Company and C & H Sugar Company, Inc., have filed a lawsuit charging corn refiners with false advertising in their recent campaign to relabel high-fructose corn syrup as “corn sugar.” “The sugar producers seek an injunction to end the advertising campaign and also seek damages, including compensation for corrective advertising.” [PR Newswire]
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Individual liberty, free markets, and peace: the world's premier libertarian think tank. Publishes Cato at Liberty, where I blog on contemporary policy issues.
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