Telephone Consumer Protection Act

Website owners who seek to bind visitors to the terms of an arbitration agreement must make those terms “reasonably conspicuous” under the law, and website visitors must “manifest unambiguous assent” to those terms.  That means that the smallest of details – the font and color of the text, the color of the page, the location and appearance of the hyperlinks and the “I agree” button – carry tremendous legal significance.  Those seemingly small design details could make the difference between a dispute being resolved in arbitration, or in litigation.

On August 15, 2017, the Ninth Circuit delivered the latest episode in the Robins v. Spokeo saga, reaffirming on remand from the Supreme Court that plaintiff Robins had alleged an injury in fact sufficient for Article III standing to bring claims under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Robins had brought a putative class action against Spokeo, which operates a “people search engine” that compiles consumer data into online reports of individuals’ personal information.  Robins alleged that Spokeo had willfully violated the FCRA’s procedural requirements, including that consumer reporting agencies must “follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information” in consumer reports, because Spokeo’s report on Robins allegedly listed the wrong age, marital status, wealth, education level, and profession, and included a photo of a different person.  According to Robins, the inaccuracies in the report about him harmed his employment prospects and caused him emotional distress.