DoNotPay, a do-it-yourself legal and consumer services company that until recently advertised itself as a "Robot Lawyer," has agreed to a Federal Trade Commission order fining it $193,000 and requiring it to warn consumers who used its service between 2021 and 2023 about the limitations of its legal products.
In addition, the order prohibits DoNotPay from "making claims about its ability to substitute for any professional service without evidence to back it up," according to the FTC.
The order followed an FTC complaint alleging that DoNotPay made false claims about its legal services to consumers, though according to the order, the company "neither admits nor denies any of the allegations" made by the federal agency. The FTC action is the latest chapter in an ongoing saga for DoNotPay over how it promoted its "Robot Lawyer" image.
In the complaint, the FTC argued that DoNotPay violated Section 5 of the FTC Act, specifically alleging counts of "False or Unsubstantiated Performance Claims" and "False Claims." The agency alleged that the company "represented, directly or indirectly, expressly or by implication, that the Service's artificial intelligence and other technology operates like a human lawyer," which it said were "false or misleading or were not substantiated at the time the representations were made."
In addition, the FTC alleged that DoNotPay's claims that it would "analyze a consumer's small business website for hundreds of federal and state law violations" and...
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