The FCC’s recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Notice of Inquiry was released on August 8, 2024. While the proposed Rule is, deservedly, getting the most press, it’s important to pay attention to the Notice of Inquiry.
In a move that could force businesses to overhaul their automated customer outreach, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed new rules requiring companies to disclose when they use artificial intelligence (AI) to generate robocalls and texts, potentially reshaping the landscape of customer interactions and brand loyalty.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: if you are in commercial finance, you need to be thinking about fair lending and anti-discrimination laws. First and foremost, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) applies to both consumer and commercial credit. Indeed, the first sentence of ECOA states that “[i]t shall be unlawful for any creditor to discriminate against any applicant, with respect to any aspect of a credit transaction[,]” on the basis of a protected characteristic. 15 USC § 1691(a) (emphasis added).
The Massachusetts’ Consumer Privacy in Commercial Transactions Act (the “Act”) limits companies’ ability to request and collect personal identification information (“PII”) that is not required for a transaction. The Act does not mention ecommerce and predated online retail, but, like many privacy litigation trends, this privacy law is now being tested in the online context.
The 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report, an annual study conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by IBM, reveals a significant rise in the global average cost of data breaches. The report shows that the average cost of a data breach reached $4.88 million in 2024, marking a 10% increase from the previous year. This is the largest annual jump since the pandemic, reflecting the growing disruption that data breaches are causing across various industries.
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