I've known Richard Newman since 2009. In 2009, "influencer marketing" wasn't a phrase yet and most people in digital advertising thought FTC enforcement happened to other people. Specifically, people who sold fake acai berry supplements via pop-up ads. The rest of us figured we were fine.

Richard Newman, even then, was politely but firmly explaining that we were not fine.

Here it is, a Sunday, and I wanted to write about a guy I've watched operate in this industry for sixteen years. Newman is a partner at Hinch Newman LLP in New York, one of the most recognized FTC defense and advertising compliance attorneys in the country. The BBC, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inside Edition, and Law360 call him when enforcement actions need explaining. The National Law Review gave him its Thought Leadership Award three years running. He authored the Consumer Protection Section of the ALM FTC Law, Practice and Procedure Treatise. He was cited in a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2014 on whether the FTC could seek monetary remedies at all. That question, as it turns out, changed everything.

So I called him. Here's what he told me.

When the Supreme Court decided AMG Capital Management v. FTC in 2021, unanimously ruling the FTC couldn't seek equitable monetary relief under Section 13(b), marketers celebrated. Newman, who had been litigating this exact issue since 2014, did not.

"The FTC now primarily relies on its enforcement authority under Section 19 of the Federal Trade Commission Act," Newman told me, "which permits the agency to seek monetary relief for violations of FTC rules and certain statutes." The statutes he rattled off read like a greatest hits of digital marketing risk: the Review and Testimonials Rule, ROSCA, the Made in USA Labeling Rule, the Telemarketing Sales Rule.

The penalties? More than $50,000 per violation. Per occurrence. The FTC didn't get weaker after AMG. It got more strategic. The agency pivoted hard into rulemaking because rules come with civil penalty provisions that pure Section 5 actions lost. Newman watched them reload from across the table.

Newman doesn't dance around this one. The FTC Rule on Consumer Reviews & Testimonials is, in his words, "the FTC's new toy and something that has already been utilized aggressively in terms of investigations and enforcement."

Before the Rule, the Commission relied on Endorsement Guidelines. No civil penalties attached. Now? The Rule prohibits deceptive practices around how reviews are solicited, collected, moderated, and published, and as of December 2025 the FTC sent warning letters to companies that Newman calls exactly what they are: a signal "the new Rule is an enforcement priority."

The part most marketers miss: the Endorsement Guides and the Review Rule are not the same instrument. The Guides are broader. The Rule is narrower but carries real financial teeth. And neither exists in a vacuum. "State attorneys general are also quite active," Newman noted. "Private consumer lawsuits are also a risk, including class actions." You're not dodging one bullet. You're in a crossfire.

There's a popular narrative that subscription enforcement is a recent crackdown. Newman corrects this with the patience of someone who has been saying it for two decades.

"The failure to clearly and conspicuously disclose material information about auto-renewing subscriptions, failing to permit customers to easily cancel their subscriptions and misrepresenting the amount of savings that customers could achieve by signing up for a service have been extremely dangerous for almost two decades."

Almost two decades. The federal framework is ROSCA, with an arsenal that includes injunctions, consumer refunds, and significant civil penalties per violation. But the real trap is the patchwork: many states have their own automatic renewal laws, some more onerous than ROSCA. You can be federally compliant and still get nailed at the state level.

AI-generated reviews didn't invent fake reviews. But the legal response is genuinely new, and it's coming from the states. California, Michigan, Texas, Oregon and others now require labeling AI-generated content. New York enacted a first-of-its-kind law requiring "conspicuous disclosure" whenever an ad features a "synthetic performer," with real monetary penalties. A federal executive order from late 2025 tried to limit state action, creating what Newman accurately calls "a complex legal landscape."

His warning to marketers using AI in creative or influencer content: the statutory penalties "can rack up very large statutory penalties and litigation costs very quickly." That's not casual language from a guy who calculates regulatory exposure for a living.

Here's what surprised me. Despite everything that has changed, the fundamental substantiation standard hasn't moved: you need a "reasonable basis" for claims before you make them. But the consequences have shifted. "Unless the failure to properly substantiate claims is tied to a rule," Newman explained, "it may be more challenging for the FTC to secure monetary relief for pure FTC Act Section 5 violations." AMG created a two-track system. Rule violations carry full penalties. Pure Section 5? The teeth aren't what they were.

His practical advice is the line every marketer should memorize: "The quality of what substantiation is based upon may ultimately be more important than quantity. Think, what do experts in the field agree upon?" Not "get more studies." Get the right ones.

I asked Newman if privacy law fundamentally changed ad compliance or just added a layer. He didn't hedge. State and international legislatures "have enacted a patchwork of consumer data privacy laws that have fundamentally changed and complicated the compliance landscape." Not added a layer. Fundamentally changed.

Approximately fifteen state privacy laws passed in 2023 and 2024 alone, joining California, Virginia, Colorado, Utah, and Connecticut. Many modeled on the GDPR and CCPA. States have added targeted laws for health data, children's privacy, AI, and data brokers. And the kicker: no federal privacy law preempts any of it. Every state stands on its own.

I saved the forward-looking question for last. Newman's answer was immediate: Artificial Intelligence.

"The Federal Trade Commission has jurisdiction to regulate deceptive and unfair business practices and regulates AI similarly to how it regulates everything else." Claiming your product uses AI when it doesn't? Deception. Letting consumers think they're talking to a human when it's a chatbot? Misleading. Promising your AI product is better than a non-AI alternative without evidence? The FTC wants specific proof of qualitative superiority.

"The use of disclaimers in the AI space is of paramount importance. They should be accurate and effective." And the part that should worry every company deploying AI: the FTC is "increasingly concerned about inaccuracy, bias and discrimination in AI tools." Newman's bottom line: "If an AI or algorithm causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers, the FTC may have a strong basis on which to bring an enforcement action."

That's not a speech at a conference. That's a lawyer who has spent twenty years sitting across from FTC enforcement staff, telling you what they're going to do next. I've been listening to Newman since 2009. Most of the time, he's been right. The smart money says he's right about this, too.