Keeping Advertising Honest
Promoting truthful, transparent, responsible advertising through self-regulation, monitoring, and enforcement.
Cy Pres Awards
Help create a more trustworthy marketplace. Cy pres funds allow BBB National Programs to serve the public interest and help protect consumers from misleading and unfair practices through our advertising and privacy self-regulation and accountability programs.
Cy Pres at Work
Cy pres funds allow BBB National Programs to serve the public interest by building a trusted marketplace through our established independent self-regulation and dispute resolution programs. Businesses and attorneys that put BBB National Programs forward as a cy pres settlement recipient help protect consumers from misleading and unfair practices in the marketplace.
Achieving Privacy Accountability
Advancing privacy best practices and operating independent, third-party accountability programs to help businesses and consumers navigate the digital marketplace.
Protecting Children & Teens Online
Protecting children from deceptive or inappropriate advertising and ensuring that, in an online environment, children’s data is collected and handled responsibly.
Resolving Consumer Disputes
Success in neutral impartial mediation and arbitration for nearly 40 years, including BBB AUTO LINE, class action arbitration, and custom programs.
Emerging Issues & Programs
BBB National Programs is continuously working on new programs and initiatives to support the evolving business landscape.
How We Apply Our Cy Pres Awards
BBB National Programs is uniquely situated as an independent, non-profit organization that works to set high standards in advertising and privacy, hold businesses accountable to those standards, and create a more trustworthy marketplace for consumers.
Our portfolio of more than a dozen programs work to address the issues alleged in false advertising, privacy, and other consumer-related class actions, and provide the guidance necessary to prevent future or continuing consumer harm.
Looking to the Future
As we look to the future, BBB National Programs can address new issues by leading individual company- or industry-wide efforts to create enforceable standards to address issues of consumer concern. BBB National Programs is at the forefront of developing programs to protect consumers from emerging harms and maintain a fair and ethical marketplace for businesses. When class action lawsuits relate to alleged consumer harms, BBB National Programs is well-suited to utilize cy pres funds to develop programs tailored to address those issues.
Examples of Cy Pres Awards
Broomfield v. Craft Brew Alliance
BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division (NAD) was named as one of two cy pres recipients in this matter related to product origin claims for one of the defendant’s beer brands. The Court chose NAD following the submission of multiple organizations as possible recipients by the parties.
Theodore Broomfield, et al. v. Craft Brew Alliance, Inc., et al., Case No. 5:17-cv-01027-BLF (N.D. Cal. Nov. 1, 2021).
Graves v. United Industries Corporation
The BBB National Programs' National Advertising Division was named a cy pres recipient in this matter related to allegedly misleading claims about the defendant’s Spectracide® Concentrate Products. It cited Rawa v. Monsanto, in finding it to be a suitable cy pres recipient.
Graves v. United Industries Corporation, Case No. 2:17-cv-06983-CASSKx, 2020 WL 953210, at *7 (C.D. Ca February 24, 2020)
Krommenhock v. Post Foods, LLC
BBB National Programs was named as one of several cy pres recipients in this matter related to consumer protection laws around allegedly deceptive marketing practices and health and wellness claims. BBB National Programs is approved as a cy pres recipient in cases involving allegations of misleading advertising because of the work our National Advertising Division does in promoting truth and transparency in advertising.
Krommenhock v. Post Foods, LLC (3:16-cv-04958, N.D. Cal. June 28, 2021)
Jones v. Monsanto
BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division was named as one of three cy pres recipients in this matter related to allegedly misleading labeling on products containing glyphosate. In granting final approval, the Court noted “the importance of tailoring a cy pres distribution to the nature of the underlying lawsuit.”
Jones v. Monsanto, Case No. 19-0102-CV-W-BP (W.D. Mo. May 13, 2021) (quoting In re Airline Ticket Comm’n Antitrust Litig., 307 F.3d 679, 683 (8th Cir. 2002)).
Rawa v. Monsanto
BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division was awarded cy pres in a matter related to allegedly misleading claims about Roundup Concentrate. The court noted the National Advertising Division’s role in “enforcing high standards of truth and accuracy [in advertising].”
Rawa v. Monsanto, Case No. 4:17CV01252, 2018 WL 2389040 (ED Mo. May 25, 2018)
Delcid v. TCP Hot Acquisition LLV & Idelle Labs
BBB National Programs was named as a cy pres recipient in this matter related to Brut and Sure antiperspirant aerosol marketed and sold in the U.S. with detectable levels of benzene.
Delcid v. TCP Hot Acquisition LLV & Idelle Labs, No. 21-cv-9569 (DLC) (S.D.N.Y) (settlement preliminarily approved)
Habberfield v. Boohoo.com USA, Inc.
BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division was named as a cy pres recipient in this matter relating to allegedly false discounts on the defendants' websites.
Habberfield v. Boohoo.com USA, Inc., 2:22-CV-03899-GW-JEMx, C.D. Cal. (Nov. 22, 2023).
Council for Responsible Nutrition
Presented with an industry historically difficult to regulate and far too many misleading advertising claims and unclear standards, the Council for Responsible Nutrition’s (CRN) Foundation turned to the National Advertising Division to create a dedicated monitoring program. Over the years, this groundbreaking effort was increasingly supported by a series of cy pres awards granted to the Foundation as part of dietary supplement false advertising settlements. The result was a 12-year partnership that expanded the National Advertising Division’s review and monitoring of dietary supplement advertising and helped create a high standard for substantiating claims in this area. Between 2007 and 2020, the National Advertising Division closed more than 360 cases in the dietary supplement space.
Anthony v. Yahoo
BBB National Programs’ corporate predecessor, the Council of Better Business Bureaus, was named as a cy pres recipient in a suit related to Yahoo’s online dating service.
Anthony v. Yahoo, No. C 05 04175 RMW (ND Cal. June 18, 2007)
Marek v. Molson Coors Beverage Company
BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division (NAD) was named as a cy pres recipient in this matter related to alleged mislabeling of health benefits for a hard seltzer product in violation of California law.
Marek v. Molson Coors Beverage Company, Case No. 21-cv-07174-WHO (USDC ND CA March 10, 2023).
