Consumer protection refers to the laws designed to aid retail consumers of goods and services that have been improperly manufactured, delivered, performed, handled, or described. Such laws provide the retail consumer with additional protections and remedies not generally provided to merchants and others who engage in business transactions, on the premise that the consumers do not enjoy a sufficient bargaining position with respect to the businessmen with whom they deal and therefore should not be strictly limited by the legal rules that govern recovery for damages among businessmen. The overarching goal is to protect individuals and the interest of the public in general from unfair and misleading activity in business and commerce (such as false advertising and deceptive trade practices) and scams perpetrated by criminals (such as identity theft and pyramid schemes) that harm a substantial number of consumers.
Shubuta is a town in Clarke County, Mississippi, United States. Shubuta was incorporated in 1865. Although Shubuta had become a trading post community in and around the 1830s, it was not until the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed that the area was available for settlement by European Americans. Shubuta started growing more rapidly when the railroad came through in the 1850s. It was at one time the largest town between Meridian and Mobile, with people coming from forty miles around to shop at the many mercantile businesses. The first record of the word Shubuta appears on Bernard Roman's Map of 1772, a copy of which appears in Riley's History of Mississippi. Riley wrote the name as "Chobuta", which means smoky water in the Choctaw language. The first newspaper in the area was the Mississippi Messenger, established by Judge Charles A. Stovall in 1879. The population was 651 at the 2000 census.