Canada's Competition Bureau Launches The Deceptive Marketing Practices Digest

This summer, the Competition Bureau (the "Bureau") released The Deceptive Marketing Practices Digest (the "Digest"). The Digest, the first of what is intended to be a series of periodic communications, is in furtherance of the Bureau's mandate of transparency. We can expect to glean from its pages the Bureau's insights and thoughts on various topical issues.

The first issue of the Digest focusses on online advertising and the digital economy. Trends identified by the Bureau include online behavioural advertising and geolocation. Three discussed trends previously identified as areas of enforcement interest for the Bureau include native advertising (where the lines between advertising and editorial or news are blurred), drip pricing (the advertising of a partial price without adequate disclosure of the full cost to the consumer), and the (in)adequate disclosure of material terms and conditions of an offer in the online and mobile contexts.