| Volume 138 Number 4 |
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Worried you may be affected by Equifax's massive data breach? The credit bureau has set up a site, equifaxsecurity2017.com, that allows you to check whether your personal information was exposed and sign up for credit monitoring. But regulators and lawyers are becoming concerned that the site could pose risks to consumers. As a result, you may want to think twice about using it. What's the risk--a hidden arbitration/class action waiver clause. Click here for more.
The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
As we make more and more purchases online, we often rely upon online reviews of products. In many cases, a large number of positive reviews of a product can be a useful indicator of product quality. That said, be careful because some online reviews are actually posted by people paid by companies to post positive reviews. This link has tips on how to tell the difference between real consumer reviews and deceptive advertising. Click here for more.
A U.S. District Judge says that plaintiffs can sue over compromised personal information
Over one billion Yahoo users whose personal information was compromised due to a series of massive data breaches will get their day in court, according to a ruling passed down by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh. Yahoo had previously tried to have the plaintiffs' class action case dismissed on the grounds that they could not specifically show how the breaches had harmed them. While Koh agreed to dismiss some parts of the case, she said that Yahoo’s actions resulted in “alleged risk of future identity theft” and “loss of value of their personal identification information,” according to the Financial Times.
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Your Money
The $1.4 million mistake too many Millennials are making. Millennials are doing lots of good work with our savings. We're saving earlier than our parents did. We're saving more too. All that despite making around 20% less than our parents did at the same age. But there's one thing many of us are doing wrong: We're investing in the wrong things. According to a recent survey by Bankrate, young adults favor cash (30%) and real estate (30%) over stocks (13%) as their preferred investment vehicle. Investing in cash or real estate is a terrible idea. Here's why Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
Telemarketer was acting as independent contractor. Plaintiffs filed suit against Royal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), 47 U.S.C. 227, seeking to hold Royal vicariously liable for several telephone calls made by telemarketers employed by AAAP. The Ninth Circuit applied the ten non-exhaustive factors set forth in the Restatement (Second) of Agency 220(2) (1958), and found that AAAP's telemarketers were acting as independent contractors rather than as Royal's agents. Therefore, the court held that Royal was not vicariously liable for the telephone calls and the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of Royal. Jones v. Royal Adm’n Servs., 866 F.3d 1100 (9th Cir. 2017). Click here for more.