Re:FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices
by SOLAR_FIELDS on Wednesday December 18, 2024 @10:18PM
(#42458068)
Excellent point. In the end the rules are simply words on paper, they must be enforced. So the exact verbiage is less important. But the lack of ambiguity is extremely important. I'll give an example:
- In the EU, what can legally be defined as a "sale" price (e.g. 20% off till Friday! deals) uses very precise verbiage that states an item must be at a certain percentage higher for a specific period of time (typically 30 days) to constitute a sale.
- In the USA, the regulations basically say that companies should make a good faith effort to not deceive consumers with sale prices. It leaves defining what a good faith effort is as an exercise to the reader (states).
The end result is that you have a lot more misleading price info in the States, since all manner of questionably legal manipulation tactics are used and enforcement of this is lax.
This insistence at having EXACT WORDS for things that aren't exact is just naivety, thinking the world is can be divided perfectly into categories if we just make the categories specific enough!
You cannot.