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.
Cold Spring is a village located in the Town of Philipstown in Putnam County, New York. The population was 1,983 at the 2000 census. It borders the smaller village of Nelsonville. The central area of the village is on the National Register of Historic Places as the Cold Spring Historic District due to its many well-preserved 19th-century buildings, constructed to accommodate workers at the nearby West Point Foundry (itself a Registered Historic Place today). The town is the birthplace of General Gouverneur K. Warren, who was an important figure in the Union Army during the Civil War. It was also the site of one of the world's largest Superfund cleanups, stemming from the disposal of nearly 150 metric tons of nickel-cadmium waste into Foundry Cove, Constitution Marsh and the adjoining Hudson River. This was committed during the mid part of the twentieth century by Marathon Battery Co. , which manufactured nickel-cadmium batteries for use in Nike missile guidance systems during the Cold War. In the late 1980s, due in part to the Clean Water Act, the SuperFund Act, and persistent interest by local citizens a plan was developed to clean the site and was enacted in 1994. By 1996 the major dredging operations were complete. Commuter service to New York City is available via the Cold Spring train station, served by Metro-North Railroad.