The U.S. Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement with Kmart over deceptive gift card advertising and sales practices.

Consisting of fine print in ‘legalese,’ the FTC found disclosures of dormancy fees to be inadequate. Kmart assessed the fees after a period of gift card inactivity.

Although this is the FTC’s first law enforcement action involving gift cards, it doesn’t break new ground. It does reinforce the agency’s commitment to full disclosure to the consumer.

Had Kmart disclosed what it was doing in bold print and in plain English (instead of lawyer talk), chances are the FTC would have done nothing.

About the Author

With an advanced international law degree from Georgetown University and more than 14 years of real world legal experience, Attorney Mike Young shows entrepreneurs how to protect and grow their businesses online. He's the author of Internet Marketing Legal Secrets Revealed. Not just a lawyer who focuses exclusively on Internet and marketing law, Mike’s been working with computers for more than 27 years (his first computer was an Atari 400 with 8 KiB RAM) and started representing Internet businesses back in 1996.