California AG Bonta announces seminal investigation sweep into “surveillance pricing” of grocers, retailers and hotels in California on Data Privacy theories. Click here to continue reading the full version of this alert.
A recent wave of California class actions under Business & Professions Code § 17529.5 is targeting companies for allegedly misleading commercial emails, posing significant legal and financial risks—especially due to strict liability claims and substantial statutory damages. Click here to to continue reading the full version of this alert.
Register now to join Crowell & Moring partners Joanna Forster, Cheri Falvey, Clay Marquez, Meghan McMeel, Stefan Meisner, and counsel Shauneida Navarrete as they discuss significant legal changes in the first half of 2025 that impact retailers/e-commerce in the United States. The webinar will take place on Wednesday, July 30, 2025 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. ET. Continue Reading Register Now! H2 2025: What Retailers/E-Commerce Need to Know Webinar
More than 200 businesses across California have been served with Notices of Violation (NOVs) of California’s Proposition 65 (“Prop 65”) for issuing thermal receipts at the register and using thermal labels and stickers in their stores. The targeted businesses include large and small retailers, restaurants, banks, gas stations, and grocers. This sudden influx of NOVs
On September 27, 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 1162, which requires employers with more than 15 employees to disclose pay scales to current employees and on job postings beginning January 1, 2023. The bill also requires private employers with more than 100 employees to submit significantly more pay data to the California Civil Rights Department (CRD, formerly known as the DFEH) beginning in May 2023.
Pay Scale Disclosure Requirements
With SB 1162, California joins Colorado, Washington, and New York City in requiring employers with more than 15 employees to disclose the pay scale for a position in any job posting. “Pay scale” means the salary or hourly wage range that an employer reasonably expects to pay for the position. The bill does not specify how or if this requirement applies to postings for remote jobs that may or may not be performed in California. We expect the CRD to issue additional guidance on this and other key issues in the coming months.Continue Reading California Requires Disclosure of Pay Scales in Job Postings and Significant New Pay Data Reporting
On August 24, 2022, the California Attorney General’s Office announced a settlement with Sephora, Inc. (Sephora), a French multinational personal care and beauty products retailer. The settlement resolved Sephora’s alleged violations of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) for allegedly failing to: disclose to consumers that the company was selling their personal information, process user requests to opt out of sale via user-enabled global privacy controls, and cure these violations within the 30-day period currently allowed by the CCPA.Continue Reading $1.2 Million CCPA Settlement with Sephora Focuses on Sale of Personal Information and Global Privacy Controls
The California Office of the Attorney General issued its first opinion interpreting the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) on March 10, 2022, addressing the issue of whether a consumer has a right to know the inferences that a business holds about the consumer. The AG concluded that, unless a statutory exception applies, internally generated inferences that a business holds about the consumer are personal information within the meaning of the CCPA and must be disclosed to the consumer, upon request. The consumer has the right to know about the inferences, regardless of whether the inferences were generated internally by the business or obtained by the business from another source. Further, while the CCPA does not require a business to disclose its trade secrets in response to consumers’ requests for information, the business cannot withhold inferences about the consumer by merely asserting that they constitute a “trade secret.”Continue Reading California AG Interprets “Inferences” Under CCPA
The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), which went into full effect on January 1, 2020, has seen robust enforcement efforts by the office of the California Department of Justice. In late January, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced an investigative sweep of businesses operating loyalty programs in California and sent notices alleging noncompliance with the CCPA to major corporations in the retail, home improvement, travel, and food services industries. In addition, Attorney General Bonta has encouraged consumers to know and express their privacy rights through an online platform that allows them to directly notify businesses of potential violations.
Continue Reading Enforcement of The California Consumer Privacy Act Via Letters Noticing Noncompliant Loyalty Programs and Online Tool for Consumers to Notify Businesses of Potential Violations
At the end of 2021, the California Statewide Commission on Recycling Markets and Curbside Recycling (the “Commission”) sent a letter to The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, also known as CalRecycle, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta, asking them to investigate illegal labeling of plastic bags as recyclable by retailers. The Commission is alleging that businesses in the state are falsely implying that their bags are capable of being recycled through curbside collection with the “chasing arrows” logo and words such as “recyclable” and “recycle.” The Commission believes this labeling is impeding the curbside recycling process.
Continue Reading California Recyclability Labeling Scrutiny Poised to Increase Retailers’ Liability Risk
In a major move by California that may be but a harbinger of a dramatic sea change in banning or severely restricting the inclusion of hundreds of chemicals present in every-day consumer goods, California just imposed upon the consumer product industry (culminating, at least most likely for 2021, right before the end of October), a sweeping range of bans that likely will fundamentally disrupt the California consumer product economy.
Continue Reading No Treats, Too Many Tricks, For PFAS This Halloween