criminal-law consumer-protection advertisements deception
Is advertising a product as &quot;Chemical Free&quot; false/misleading advertising?
<p>Many products, often times foods or cleaning supplies use the phrase &quot;Chemical Free&quot; in their advertising and packaging. This is often used in products containing more naturally derived ingredients, and is directed towards consumers who may conflate &quot;chemicals&quot; with being &quot;un-natural&quot; or harmful.</p>
<p>The problem is that literally everything made out of matter is a chemical. The advertising may as well say &quot;Matter Free&quot;.</p>
<p>Since there is no agreed-upon colloquial definition of &quot;chemicals&quot; in this sense, and the advertisement essentially relies on the consumer's unawareness, would this practice fall under the category of false advertising?</p>

<h2>No</h2>
<p>A reasonable person understands “chemical free” to mean free of <em>artificial</em> (i.e. man-made) chemicals.</p>

<p>Not yet – in the US. There is no such thing as an &quot;agreed-upon colloquial definition&quot; of <em>any</em>
term (we elect presidents, not definitions), so the existence of an ordinary meaning of every word is subject to debate pro and con. Typically, if the meaning of a word is at issue and the law has not stipulated a specific meaning in some case, the courts rely on dictionaries, or occasionally allow expert testimony. A scholarly study of dictionary definitions would show that &quot;artificially created&quot; is an essential aspect of the definition, and a random survey of English speakers is likely to include the sense &quot;created by high-tech means&quot; (most wood ash is not naturally occurring and blobs of tallow are not found in the woods: &quot;artificial&quot; also has a common meaning that excludes many man-made products.</p>
<p>The claim is therefore probably true, even though there is a specialized technical definition of &quot;chemical&quot; according to which the claim is false. See <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/149/304/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Nix v. Hedden</a> for an 1893 case where the Supreme Court rejected a technical definition of tomato as &quot;fruit&quot; in favor of a more common interpretation. But in specific instances (depending on what's in the product) the claim might be deceptive. The term &quot;natural&quot; has also been applied to products for a long time, and there is a bit of <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2016/04/are-your-all-natural-claims-all-accurate" rel="nofollow noreferrer">clarity from the FTC</a>. Taking the <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/152-3269/abs-consumer-products-matter" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ABS complaint</a> as an example, their decision hinges on their finding that the products &quot;contain at least one synthetic ingredient&quot;. This is an FTC decision, which is not as powerful as a court ruling or statutory declaration by Congress, but it is meaningful. The term &quot;synthetic&quot; narrows the meaning of &quot;all-natural&quot;, now we know that according to the FTC the term does not mean &quot;found like that in mother nature with no human processing&quot;.</p>
<p>At present, FTC involvement in &quot;chemical free&quot; is fairly limited. They have <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/es/news-events/press-releases/2013/07/three-companies-barred-advertising-mattresses-free-volatile" rel="nofollow noreferrer">found against companies</a> whose products release VOCs, but the claims made were plainly false in claiming to not release VOCs when they do, and the rulings do not hinge simply on using &quot;chemical&quot; in a non-technical way.</p>
<p>A similar terminological crisis arose decades ago over the term &quot;organic&quot;, which was resolved by the <a href="https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/organic-standards" rel="nofollow noreferrer">USDA promulgating regulations</a> governing use of their &quot;organic&quot; logo, encoded in <a href="https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title07/7cfr205_main_02.tpl" rel="nofollow noreferrer">7 CFR Part 205</a>, and this took an act of Congress (the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_Foods_Production_Act_of_1990" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Organic Foods Production Act</a>). It is extremely unlikely that the FTC will decide that the expression &quot;chemical-free&quot; means &quot;contains no matter&quot;: that would be absurd. But Congress could make that decision, or, more likely, it would more narrowly state what it means to be &quot;chemical-free&quot;.</p>
