Inflation on consumer items is so low that the Federal Reserve sees a risk of deflation, a spiral of falling prices and wages. But the prices of some commodities, driven by demand from China and other hot economies, have been rising fast.
Legal
The credit card issuers, in an accord with the Justice Department, will let shopkeepers disclose processing fees to customers and offer discounts to those using cards that carry lower fees.
On June 30, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver against the executive secretary of the Colorado Department of Revenue challenging the constitutionality of Colorado's new consumer notice and reporting law that's targeted at out-of-state retailers who don't collect Colorado sales tax.
The Oklahoma Tax Commission has adopted, and Governor Brad Henry has signed, a set of emergency rules to implement a use tax notice law passed by the legislature at the end of May. A rulemaking to set the permanent rules will likely commence next spring. The effective date for the rules is October 1, 2010.
In a setback for the QVC shopping network, a federal judge has said that vitamin marketer Andrew Lessman, who sells supplements on the Home Shopping Network, may continue to use his blog to criticize competing products sold by QVC.
Dueling pieces of legislation, both of which were introduced in Congress in July, address the issue of whether to close the loophole that allows online shoppers in most states to avoid paying sales tax.
Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Communications Subcommittee, said Tuesday that he will introduce an online privacy bill that will create standards for how consumer data is collected and used for marketing.
For patent lawyers, Bilski v. Kappos was the most eagerly anticipated Supreme Court decision in years — a decision on the patentability of business methods, the primary type of patent asserted against direct marketers that operate e–commerce websites. Unfortunately, when the Supreme Court finally issued its decision at the end of June, Bilski turned out to be this year’s Waterworld.
The Colorado General Assembly is taking an alternate path to obtain sales tax revenues on purchases by Colorado residents from out-of-state retailers.
The Direct Marketing Association is pleased to announce that the Senate three-times rejected a House proposal to drastically expand the powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) across all but a few sectors of the American economy. DMA led the charge in the fight to keep these FTC expansion provisions out of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act (H.R. 4173) as the final text of the bill was negotiated by a formal Conference Committee. These provisions would grant the FTC broad new rulemaking and enforcement authority, enabling the Commission to act essentially as an unelected legislature, governing industries and sectors that had nothing to do with the financial crisis.