Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R-MS) and Attorney General Aaron Ford (D-NV) announced filing a bipartisan, multistate amicus brief last week in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in defense of state lawsthat hold web-based companies accountable for consumer protectionviolations.
A federal district court in California found in favor of Shopify in adata privacy case (Briskin v Shopify Inc), affording the online platform andothers like it special protections.“According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, retail e-commerce sales forjust the first three months of this year exceeded $268 billion, and Mississippiconsumers are increasingly conducting business online,” said AttorneyGeneral Lynn Fitch. “Online businesses cannot be allowed to evade stateconsumer protection laws that help level the playing field for everydayconsumers against big corporations. But the lower court in this case essentiallyfound that because online companies do business everywhere, they can be heldaccountable nowhere. I was proud to stand with AG Ford and these 29 otherAttorneys General in a bipartisan effort to protect American consumers whenthey do business online.”"Our consumers need protection from fraudsters who are able to takeadvantage of laws that lag behind the rapid technological growth in the digitalretail space,” said Attorney General Aaron Ford. "If online companies areable to skirt their responsibility to consumers, it makes it harder for states toprotect their residents from online scams."In the brief, Generals Fitch, Ford, and 29 other Attorneys General explain,“[Adoption of the lower court’s analysis] could operate to deprive stateattorneys general of a proper venue to enforce their respective states’ consumerprotection and other laws against internet-based companies....
Such anextreme result could potentially operate to immunize these companies fromever facing enforcement actions from state attorneys general seeking to protecttheir states’ citizens using their state legislative grants of authority to do so.”
Along with Mississippi and Nevada, 29 Attorneys General joined the amicus brief, including: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut,Delaware, Hawai’i, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts,Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York,North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, SouthCarolina, South Dakota, Vermont, and Washington, and the District ofColumbia.
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