जनता का आदमी

(Tom Richardson)

Net neutrality has already made a lot of enemies, and the new rule hasn’t even been implemented yet. Along with big ISP lawsuits and hostility in the House, the FCC’s Open Internet Rule is now facing pushback from some of the big money entrepreneurs who make the internet their business.

An “ad hoc group of Internet gray beards,” as tech reporter Katy Bachman aptly styles them, have filed a petition to the FCC requesting that the agency put a stay on their own order.

If that sounds unlikely to happen, that’s only because it is. The petition therefore also includes a threat: if the FCC doesn’t hold its own order by May 11, then the “Tech Innovators” group will file a suit asking the court to issue a stay.

Daniel Berninger, founder of VCXC, filed the petition (PDF). VCXC is a tech group pushing to hasten the IP transition — that is, the move away from copper wire telecom service and onto replacement phone-over-broadband services.

You may or may not have heard of Berninger or of most of the other executives among the group (Marc Cuban is probably the most recognizable name), but you’ve heard of many of their companies and products, like Vonage and Lotus Notes.

In short, these are entrepreneurs who have backed successful internet venture bets before, and they are now telling the FCC that it’s in everyone’s best interest if future would-be entrepreneurs aren’t guaranteed the same equal playing field they got their starts on.

The petition claims, much like the lawsuits, that the Open Internet order exceeds the FCC’s authority, is “arbitrary and capricious,” and will harm future innovation and investments in internet businesses.

Berninger and the others are pushing for a Congressional, non-Title II solution to the problems of net neutrality, and to that end are meeting with some members of Congress today. Realistically, the most likely outcome of the stay is one more lawsuit to be rolled together with all the others and eventually decided in one fell swoop years down the line.

[via Katy Bachman]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(.sanden.)

The housing market simply can’t keep up with the demand from a very specific part of the market…people who seek houses worth $100 million or more. Sales of houses with nine-figure price tags have reached an all-time high of…well, five of them sold last year, but there are many more on the market or being sold away from the general real estate market, and the fabulous-homes-for-billionaires market will just keep growing.

Not that the lovely people at Christie’s International Real Estate are objective observers of the high-end real estate market. However, looking at the very highest end of the real estate market does give us some interesting insights into global trends. First is the fact that billionaires see giant houses as an investment. “It’s something they’ll hold onto for a lifetime,” the CEO of Christie’s Real Estate told Bloomberg News, “the same way they’ll hold onto a Picasso or a Warhol or any number of the great pieces of art we’ve sold over the years.” You can put a painting inside your house, but you can’t live inside a painting.

Some of these mega-homes aren’t really “homes” for their owners, anyway: they’re a place to park money. It was just three years ago that uber-rich people from mainland China were first allowed to buy houses abroad, and many of the nine-figure residences on the market have sold to them.

Good news for people with more modest means, though: in the world’s wealthiest areas, the experts say that luxury homes usually only start at around $2 million.

Sales of $100 Million Homes Rise to Record Worldwide [Bloomberg News]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(TheBackYardScientist)

There is no question we never fail to answer in this Internet age, and it’s, “What’s gonna happen next?” We have to know. We were born needing to know. And so of course, we must click a button and find out what could possibly occur when some guy pours molten aluminum into a watermelon and films it.

Because something must happen, if the video is posted on the Internet in the first place, especially when it pairs two things that don’t normally interact, right?

Probably, but it’s not always what you’d expect: In the case of watermelon-plus-melty-metal, even The Backyard Science guy behind the clip admits that he had a pretty buzzworthy result in mind.

Did he achieve instant virality? Is Gallagher going to be very jealous? We’re not in the habit of spoiling the end of stories, so you’ll just have to watch and findout for yourself. I will say it’s pretty cool, regardless of your expectations when it comes to molten metals and fruit.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Dustin Michelson)

It’s difficult to go a month or even just a few weeks without hearing of another for-profit college being under investigation for unscrupulous practices, such as inflated job placement rates and pushing students into costly student loans. New legislation announced today aims to curtail the number of investigations we hear about by protecting students from predatory, deceptive, and fraudulent practices in the for-profit college sector, before they even enroll.

The Protections and Regulations For Our Students Act – also known as the PRO Students Act – would, among other things, ensure that students have access to accurate information and data about schools, strengthen oversight and regulation governing the for-profit college industry, and hold schools accountable for violations and poor performance.

California Representative Mark Takano announced the bill during a press conference on Thursday afternoon saying the legislation would ensure that student and taxpayer funds are being well spent, and that students are receiving quality, affordable education.

“It is critical that our students are able to make informed decisions about where they will receive the quality, affordable higher education that is right for them,” Takano said in a summary [PDF] of the PRO Students Act prior to the announcement Thursday. “Unfortunately, some schools, particularly those in the for-profit college sector, are employing predatory, fraudulent, and deceptive practices to enroll students, and then leave them with unsustainable debt, worthless credits, certifications, and degrees, and dismal job prospects.”

The PRO Students Act includes provisions that:
• Require proprietary institutions to derive at least 15% of their revenue from non-federal student aid and ensure that military and veterans’ education benefits are included in that calculation.

• Prohibit schools from using revenues derived from federal student aid for recruiting and marketing.

• Launch a complaint tracking system for students to report grievances.

• Establish a Proprietary Education Oversight Coordination Committee and create a framework for targeting and prioritizing program reviews by the Department of Education.

• Strengthen sanctions for violations, establish a Student Relief Fund, and bolster consumer protections for students.

• Improve the quality of and access to key information, such as the student default risk index, cohort default rates, loan repayment rates, degree completion rates, and accreditation documents.

• Prohibit pre-dispute arbitration clauses in loan contracts that waive the rights available to borrowers against loan servicers.

• Prohibit incentive compensation based on recruitment or academic success.

• Strengthen whistleblower protections for faculty and staff. The legislation is co-sponsored by California Rep. Susan Davis and Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen.

Rep. Mark Takano to Introduce Higher Education Regulation Legislation to Protect Students [Mark Takano]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(JeepersMedia)

When faced with wasting precious data allotments, many travelers submit to paying for WiFi on the go. But Sprint customers will find their wallets staying a bit fatter with new, free access to Boingo Wireless hotspots in 35 U.S. airports, starting today.

Sprint and Boingo announced their deal today, without disclosing financial details of the arrangement. Customers will be able to automatically connect to WiFi networks at a slew of airports, the companies said in a press release today, without dinging their data allowances.

“With WiFi being the world’s largest wireless ecosystem, we view it as a highly complementary layer to our network,” said Stephen Bye, Sprint CTO. “By enabling customers to move seamlessly between secure Wi-Fi and cellular, our customers will have a better mobile experience in more locations, all while lowering their cost of data usage.”

Sprint’s been pushing WiFi connectivity in other ways as well, introducing free calling over WiFi for iPhone customers last month.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Pete Kraynak

A few weeks ago, Sears Holdings announced that it would be starting a joint venture with mall operator Simon Properties. This new company would buy Sears stores, then lease them back to the company in an effort to raise some quick cash and keep the company’s retail operations retailing. Now Sears has announced a similar deal with another mall owner, Macerich Properties.

Each company had its own valuable contribution to the joint venture: Sears contributed nine stores, whose real estate value is $300 million. Macerich kicked in $150 million in cash, which is now in the coffers of Sears Holdings. The company that Sears started to serve as a partner in this joint venture, Seritage Growth Properties, will raise money for its contribution to the joint venture through a rights offering of its stock: that means that current Sears shareholders will have the right to buy shares of Seritage, and then Seritage will pass that money on to Sears in exchange for its share of the real estate.

“We are pleased to be in a position to unlock substantial value for Sears Holdings shareholders and further facilitate the company’s transformation,” Sears Holding chairman Eddie Lampert is quoted saying in the announcement of the joint venture. “Through these transactions, we have additional capital to invest in our membership and integrated retail platforms.”

If the Sears stores involved in the deal close or simply don’t use all of their floor space, Seritage will have the right to “recapture” that space and lease it to another retailer at whatever the market rate happens to be. Picture the current arrangements that Sears has with other retailers like Dick’s, Primark, and Whole Foods: for future arrangements like that in stores that are part of a joint venture, Seritage would be their landlord instead of Sears.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(sparkle-motion)

When Education Credit Management Corporation announced late last year that it would buy 56 of for-profit education chain Corinthian College Inc.’s Everest University and WyoTech campuses, consumer advocates expressed great concern that the new company – which would operate under the name Zenith – would continue the unfair practice of requiring students to sign away their right to seek any legal action against the company if they’re wronged. While ECMC ultimately said it would do away with the practice, new legislation aims to strengthen students’ legal rights when it comes to forced arbitration.

The Court Legal Access & Student Support Act (CLASS) – introduced to the legislature by Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Rep. Maxine Waters of California – would prohibit any school receiving student aid funding from the Department of Education from including any restrictions on students’ ability to pursue legal claims, individually or with others, against higher education institutions in court.

Durbin and Waters say their new bill [PDF] is an attempt to end the growing, strategic use of mandatory arbitration and class action waiver clauses in enrollment agreements by all education institutions.

The use of arbitration clauses have skyrocketed by companies – including those focused on education – since 2011, when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that it was perfectly okay for companies to take away a consumer’s right to sue or their ability to join other wronged consumers in a class action case by inserting a paragraph or two of text inside lengthy contracts.

By using arbitration clauses, for-profit colleges such as CCI have shielded themselves from taking responsibility for their own alleged deceptions such as misrepresented job placement statistics.

Colleges that use arbitration clauses also retain the right to choose their own arbitrator and other key aspects of the potential dispute resolution process.

“For years, unscrupulous for-profit colleges have enriched themselves by devouring billions in federal student loan dollars while leaving students with worthless degrees and a mountain of debt,” Durbin said in a statement. “The practices of requiring binding, mandatory arbitration or prohibiting students from seeking a jury trial or bringing class action suits against a company unfairly stacks the deck against students.”

The most recent case of forced arbitration in student enrollment agreements came to a head this week when Corinthian Colleges announced it would close its remaining campuses.

“If this bill had been law in the last several years, students defrauded by the now-failed Corinthian Colleges would have been able to seek redress from the courts and relief directly from the school,” the legislators say in a statement.

CCI, which is party to a number of federal and state investigations, allegedly engaged in fraudulent conduct at its campuses across the country, including misrepresenting the quality and success of its programs.

Although several investigations have found basis for the allegations, students at the schools have had few options for recourse because of the binding arbitration clauses in their enrollment agreements.

“This legislation will take bold action toward eliminating these types of provisions, putting an end to many troubling practices and ultimately giving students’ back the right to their day in court,” Waters says in a statement.

While ECMC, which completed the purchase of more than 50 CCI campuses in February, said it would refrain from using such clauses in its new enrollment agreements with former CCI students, Durbin says that simply isn’t true. He pointed out during a speech on the Senate floor earlier this year that ECMC continues to limit students’ legal rights through the fine print of enrollment agreements, spreading the unfair practice into the non-profit sector.

The CLASS Act was quickly greeted with support from a number of consumer and student advocacy groups including the Center for Responsible Lending, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America, our colleagues at Consumers Union and the National Consumer Law Center.

In a statement [PDF] released about the legislation, NCLC said it strongly endorsed the bill.

“For-profit schools that defraud students should not be allowed to use forced arbitration before a biased, secretive, and lawless system as a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center, said.

Durbin, Waters Introduce Legislation To Strengthen Students’ Legal Rights [Dick Durbin]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

If life was fair, we could all be our ideal body shape/type/weight and look as young/old/smart as we wanted while eating/drinking/doing whatever we felt like. Life, however, is not fair, and as such, it’s unlikely that drinking booze infused with collagen will give you both the buzz of alcohol and the fresh-faced appearance of youth in one bottle. You just can’t have it both ways.

Not too long ago, the parent company of Jim Beam, Suntory Holdings Limited, introduced a beer aimed at women in Japan that includes two grams of collagen per can, Fortune pointed out last week.

Dubbed “Precious” and only available in Hokkaido right now, the beverage comes with a tag line that promises the attention of men: “Guys can tell if a girl is taking collagen or not.”

The fountain of youth, made from beer? Probably not, a collagen expert told Fortune, as alcohol isn’t great for the body or your skin (think of how puffy and tired you look the next day after one too many). And at only two grams of collagen in each can, “there isn’t enough collagen to make a remarkable difference for your skin’s complexion,” Dr. Ariel Ostad of New York University Medical Center told Fortune.

That, and ingesting collagen isn’t the most effective way of turning back time, Dr. Ostad says, because our bodies break it down in the digestive process like any other protein.

And if you didn’t know — he added, “the advertisement claiming that ‘guys can tell if a girl is taking collagen or not’ is totally misleading.”

Suntory told Fortune it couldn’t vouch for any anti-aging effects, but that there are “findings that Japanese women wanted to take collagen, so we created this regionally-marketed product to meet their needs.”

You want it, you got it — but don’t expect it to actually do anything.

Suntory Launches Collagen-Infused Beer Aimed at Japanese Women [Fortune]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Hammerin Man)

Yesterday we reported that Congress would make a decision whether or not it would intervene to slow the Department of Defense’s work to create new rules aimed at closing loopholes in the Military Lending Act that often leave military personnel vulnerable to predatory financial operations. Thankfully, legislators saw the need for more protections regarding military lending and determined the rules could go into effect as planned.

According to the Military Times, Congress narrowly voted to remove controversial language that would have delayed the rules from the annual defense authorization bill.

The 32-30 vote in the House Armed Services Committee concerned a small provision (Sec. 594) in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act [PDF], that would require the Sec. of Defense to submit a report to Congress by March 1, 2016 on any new MLA-related rules.

While the crux of the Act is good, the passage that many consumer groups feared would be the undoing of the Military Lending Act read:

“Additionally, the Secretary of Defense may not implement any final regulation concerning [the Military Lending Act] until the end of a 60 day period beginning when the required report is submitted to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and the House of Representatives.”

That small clause would have pushed any new rules from the DoD off until at least May 2016, leaving servicememebers vulnerable to losing millions of dollars to unscrupulous lenders and other companies.

The Military Lending Act, as it stands, prevents military personnel from being caught in revolving debt traps of triple-digit interest loans from predatory financing operations like payday and auto-title lenders. However, there are loopholes in the Act that allow some lenders to get around the MLA’s 36% APR interest rate cap, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars to servicemembers each year and raising issues of national security.

Examples of companies and products taking advantage of the loopholes in the current MLA include retailers that provide financing for servicemembers’ purchases of electronics and other goods, without clearly stating the cost of the financing to the buyer.

One such case made headlines last July, when a Virginia-based company that marketed always-approved credit offers to members of the military with bad credit or no credit history was found to have charged customers several times the price of products thanks in part to exorbitant markups and finance charges. In one case, a servicemember ended up paying $8,626 for a $650 laptop.

Other financial products currently not covered by the MLA are credit cards and deposit advance loans. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, nearly 1-in-4 servicemembers will take out a deposit advance loan — often with an APR of around 300% — each year, paying millions in fees.

The DoD’s new rules would expand the MLA Act to cover these products and financiers, reaching nearly 40,000 creditors, most involving credit cards, deposit advance loans, installment loans and unsecured open-end lines of credit, the Military Times reports.

Advocacy group Public Citizen said in a statement that the push to delay the protection from taking effect illustrated “the horrendous abuses prevalent in underregulated markets, where corporations routinely target vulnerable populations. It demonstrates how smart regulations are needed and can make a huge difference in people’s lives.”

The final vote on the proposal came in the early hours of Thursday after more than 18 hours of debate. There’s still a possibility that the delay clause could be reintroduced when the bill reaches the full House next month.

Panel votes to dump delay in military lending rules [The Military Times]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Roger Schultz)

Car-hailing app Uber has racked up another municipality on its list of places where the service has been banned, yet drivers remain on the roads anyway. That distinction belongs to the entire nation of Brazil, where a judge has ruled that providing rides to strangers is the exclusive right of licensed taxi services.

Yesterday, a judge ruled that Uber must stop giving rides in Brazil, imposing a fine of 100,000 real or about $30,000 USD per day that they remain on the road. However, a Sao Paulo-based Bloomberg News reporter noted that the service was still running locally and drivers were ready to pick up fares. Maybe the service was slow to shut down, or maybe Uber is betting that the government won’t really impose those fines, and would consider them part of the cost of doing business if it does. When contacted, the company claimed not to have heard about the decision yet.

The order also affects companies that offer downloads of mobile apps: Google, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung have been ordered to stop offering the Uber app to consumers who are known to live in Brazil, and to remotely block users who have already downloaded it.

“Thousands of professional taxi drivers are being harmed daily by the dizzying expansion of the company,” the judge wrote in his decision. The country’s taxi drivers were the ones who brought the case against Uber.

Uber Is Ordered to Suspend Services in Brazil by Sao Paulo Court [Bloomberg News]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Because it wouldn’t be an Apple product without some kind of hubbub over a wait or delay involved, a new report says some shipments of the Apple Watch will take a while after one of two suppliers made a faulty component.

That means that Apple will have to limit how many watches are out there for sale, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing insiders in the know.

This isn’t just your garden variety component, if there is such a thing — the taptic engine is the piece of the watch that makes it feel like you’re being tapped gently on the wrist, a feature Apple thinks is superior to a ding or a ring or a vibration.

A play on the word “haptic,” (technology that delivers a physical sensation) the taptic engines were being made by two companies when reliability testing revealed that some of the parts supplied by AAC Technologies Holdings in China were breaking down over time.

Apple reportedly tossed completed watches because of the problem, and is likely to move all manufacturing of the taptic engines to the other company, Nidec Corp. of Japan. The engines made by Nidec reportedly didn’t show the same issue.

There won’t be a recall because it appears at this point that Apple hasn’t shipped any watches with a fault taptic engine to customers.

“Our team is working to fill orders as quickly as possible based on available supply and the order in which they were received,” Apple told the WSJ in a statement. “We know many customers are still facing long lead times and we appreciate their patience.”

It isn’t clear how much the wonky taptic engines contributed to limited availability, though the spokesperson added that “we will be able to get customers the model they want earlier and faster by taking orders online.”

Apple Watch: Faulty Taptic Engine Slows Rollout [Wall Street Journal]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Mike Mozart)

A day after we learned that McDonald’s had eliminated nine items from its menu so far this year, the fast food giant announced it would also adjust its build-your-own-burger test program to be easier for customers and franchisees to use.

Reuters reports that McDonald’s has started testing TasteCrafted, a more modest version of its “Create Your Taste” pilot that began late last year, at several restaurants around the country.

The new version of the customizable meal program will reportedly cost less for franchisees to install and have the ability to be offered through drive-thru windows.

A spokesperson for McDonald’s says the TasteCrafted program is currently being testing in a limited number of restaurants near Atlanta; Portland, OR and Southern California.

Citing a filing from an analyst for Janney Capital, Reuters reports that the new test allows diners to choose burgers, sandwiches, McWraps and salads in a variety of “chef inspired flavors.”

While the TasteCrafted program may be a simplified menu, it still offers a plethora of options for customers including the choice of sandwiches made with beef or chicken, three choices of buns and four different topping flavors: bacon clubhouse, pico guacamole, hot jalapeño and ranch deluxe.

Because of the slimmed down nature of TasteCrafted, analysts say that the program could be rolled out nationally by the fast food chain in just a few months, whereas the original Create Your Taste Program would have taken two to three years.

Reuters reports that franchisees had expressed displeasure with the original customized program that was introduced prior to new CEO Steve Easterbrook taking the helm in March.

Owners of the restaurants had complained that the program – which was being tested in more than 2,000 stores in California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Georgia, Missouri and Pennsylvania – was too slow and that the installation price of more than $100,000 was too much considering it wasn’t available through drive-thru windows.

McDonald’s tests custom burger program with drive-thru option [Reuters]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(kc2gvx)

Though not many of its fast food rivals have taken the plunge into organic waters, Wendy’s is just going with the trend embraced increasingly by consumers, announcing that it’ll be serving Honest Tea nationwide at its restaurants, brewed fresh by workers and sweetened with fair-trade sugars and natural flavors approved in USDA certified organic foods.

According to the Wall Street Journal, this move into organic beverages around the country makes Wendy’s a bit of a standout among its peers, and shows that it’s ready to get on board with the the kind of healthier eating lifestyle that has become popular among consumers in recent years.

The tea will be brewed on site, Seth Goldman, co-founder and chief executive of Bethesda, Md.-based Honest Tea (its parent company is Coca-Cola) told the WSJ. Wendy’s has an exclusive deal to sell one flavor — Honest Tropical Green Tea.

Washing down French fries with an organic drink might seem like a stretch, but traditional soda isn’t the ruler of the roost it once was — consumption of Diet Coke alone has decreased 15% in the past two years, the WSJ points out, with Coke’s sales volumes from soda rising a measly 1% in each of the last two years worldwide.

Coke is now hoping to reap the rewards of owning Honest Tea, with Goldman saying it’s hoped the drink will hit $500 million in sales in five years, after making $134 million in sales in 2014.

The company is aiming to do some of that with the Wendy’s deal, where Honest Tea will be sold at a suggested price of $1.69 for a small drink (compared to $1.39 for a small soda), in the hopes that if you can’t be convinced to part with your money to drink soda while you’re eating fries — dusted in sea salt, even — maybe you’ll fork over a little extra for a trendy organic drink.

Wendy’s to Start Selling Honest Tea [Wall Street Journal]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Dave Transier)

It’s not every day you see a dog flying first class – for free – on an airplane. But that’s exactly what passengers on a flight from Iowa to Louisiana witnessed Wednesday, as United Airlines footed the bill to reunite a dog with his family after going missing four years ago.

ABC News reports (warning: link video autoplays) that United pulled out all the stops when it came to reuniting Sam, a Yorkshire terrier, with his family in Louisiana.

The ordeal began in 2011, when the family says Sam went through a hole in their backyard fence into the surrounding wooded area. The family tried everything they could to find the dog, but had no luck.

That is until this April when an animal control officer in Cedar Rapids, IA, spotted the pup and brought him to a local shelter.

“The Yorkie was in fair condition, but was straggly and weighed only 5 1/2 pounds,” according to the press release from the city of Cedar Rapids. “Despite the dog’s condition, Animal Care and Control staff was able to determine that the Yorkie had a microchip.”

After scanning the microchip, the shelter contacted the family, who had all but given up hope on finding their furry friend.

“We were waiting to hear around here if someone found him,” the family’s mom says. “They would have called us. After four years, you kind of give up hope.”

Because the family couldn’t afford to bring Sam home themselves, they set up a fundraising page and raised more than $250. But after hearing the story, United Airlines stepped in and paid for the dog’s return trip in first class with an animal worker.

Upon landing at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on Wednesday, the dog and his newly reunited family were welcomed with balloon and refreshments provided by the airline.

ABC News reports that the individuals who initially donated for the dogs transport have agreed to allow the family to put the funds toward caring for Sam.

Dog Found in Iowa Returned to Louisiana Owner After Missing Nearly 4 Years [ABC News]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Zooming along the sidewalk at up to 13 miles per hour on an electric-powered scooter sounds like a lot of fun. However, one scooter company has run into trouble by running its ads that show an unsupervised teen zipping around the neighborhood during shows for inappropriately young kids. Their commercials caught the attention of the ad watchdogs over at the Children’s Advertising Review Unit of the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council.

Because I spend too much time on the Internet, I wasn’t aware that anyone under 13 actually watched the current generation of “My Little Pony” cartoons. In all seriousness, though, the CARU found this spot inappropriate for the audience of “Friendship is Magic,” which is when it aired.

Based on the description, the ad in question appears to be this one:

While the subject of the ad scooters around a residential neighborhood, the ad’s disclaimers tell us that it’s a “closed and controlled course.” The bigger problem, though, is that the more powerful scooters displayed in the ad aren’t appropriate for kids under age 13 or so. The main character in the ad films himself and there aren’t any adults present, which is a key part of the industry’s self-imposed safety rules. “children are prone to exploration, imitation, and experimentation and may imitate product demonstrations or other activities depicted in advertisements without regard to risk.”

The ASRC is a self-regulation body that reviews current ads and responds to complaints from competitors about problematic advertising. In this case, Bravo Sports informed the watchdogs that they are no longer airing this ad, and that they will keep the concerns about safety and adult supervision in mind if they make more electric scooter ads in the future.

CARU Recommends Bravo Sports Depict Safety Gear, Supervision in Future Scooter Ads Directed to Children Under 12 [ASRC]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(iDiapo)

Since introducing ResearchKit, its open-source framework for scientists to develop iPhone apps for medical research, Apple has made a few tweaks to the submission guidelines for apps that aim to collect and use sensitive medical data. One new addition is that anyone submitting an app that does research on humans must submit proof that the study has been approved by an independent ethics review board.

Whether the research includes simply taking a survey or experimental drugs or surgery, any research that involves experimenting on people must be approved by an ethical review board. That doesn’t mean that you take a research proposal down the hall to friendly colleagues and say, “Hey, guys, does this look ethical to you?” For researchers who work at a hospital or a university, for example, their institutions will have their own review board which should function independently. Review boards for hire are also available. Apple is now leaving those decisions to the respective review boards of researchers who are submitting apps.

This probably won’t matter very much in the context of apps that will be part of ResearchKit, since it’s difficult for taking a survey or monitoring your heart rate on a smart watch to kill or significantly harm you. Still, participants’ privacy is important, and so is their overall well-being: asking remote research subjects to perform tasks that could be dangerous for them or questions that are potentially upsetting.

App Store Review Guidelines [Apple]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Here’s an example of a non-disparagement clause in the real world. This one is from a wedding supply vendor’s contract. It forbids customers from making disparaging remarks or encouraging others to make them.

For the last couple of years, we’ve been telling you about ridiculous, so-called “non-disparagement” clauses that threaten customers with financial penalties for writing (or threatening to write, or even encouraging someone else to write) something negative online about a company. California has already outlawed these clauses, which tend to fail when challenged in court, but an attempt to enact legislation at the federal level has so far fallen short. But that’s not stopping some members of Congress from trying to ban this form of consumer bullying.

Rep. Eric Swalwell from California, the lawmaker behind the Consumer Review Freedom Act of 2014, is trying again with the Consumer Review Freedom Act of 2015 [PDF], which would void any contract clause that “prohibits or restricts the ability of a person who is a party to the form contract to engage in a covered communication,” or which “imposes a penalty or fee” against that person, or which gives the business any intellectual property rights over the customer’s lawful communications.

This last one might seem odd to people who haven’t followed the news about these nonsensical contracts, but a number of businesses have attempted to quiet consumers by claiming a copyright on the customers’ reviews and photos.

There was the dentist whose contract included a clause automatically granting her intellectual property rights to anything her clients wrote about her. She tried to use this copyright claim to have negative reviews of her business taken down, but now she owes the customer thousands of dollars after failing to defend herself in court.

Then there was the Florida apartment complex that not only claimed copyright on tenants’ reviews, but on any photos they took of the property. After the news got wind of this clause, the management company claimed it no longer included that condition in its contracts, though at least one tenant said otherwise.

Just this month, we told you about the Orlando wedding supply vendor that not only tries to ban customers from saying bad things about their business, but also prohibits customers from encouraging anyone else to say something negative. The most perplexing part of the contract is that there is no mention or description of what sort of penalty the customer might face if they violated this clause.

“Too often, a consumer shares a negative customer service experience with others, then learns that according to the fine print in the boilerplate contract, he may not criticize the business publicly, including writing an online review,” says Scott Michelman of Public Citizen, who has helped represent consumers in non-disparagement cases. “Companies use these unjust terms to bully dissatisfied customers into silence.”

Michelman believes the Consumer Review Freedom Act would would protect individual consumers from hidden contract terms that forbid criticism.

“It also would help prospective customers avoid unscrupulous businesses by enabling them to learn from the experiences of their fellow consumers,” he adds.

This latest version of the federal legislation may stand a better chance, as Swalwell is joined in introducing the bill by powerful Congressman Darrell Issa, also from California, who is Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Having bipartisan support from a prominent member of the House can’t hurt the bill’s chances.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(dsuniaga)

Not content to ferry passengers, packages and food, Uber is reportedly casting its net in the pool of merchant delivery, by taking advantage of both its drivers and its UberRUSH courier service to connect online shoppers with their goods the same day they order them from popular retailers.

You could ostensibly be riding with someone’s hamburger in the back seat with you while another stranger’s shoes are reclining up front, reports TechCrunch: The site says it got its hands on training manuals for its drivers and couriers who will be a part of the merchant delivery pilot program.

Insiders say retailers like Neiman Marcus, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany’s and more have discussed being a part of the program, for a total of more than 400 merchants currently talking to Uber about same-day delivery.

Uber issued a statement from a spokesperson to TechCrunch, saying neither yes nor no: “Experimenting and finding new, creative ways for the Uber app to provide even greater value to our riders and driver partners is a way of life at Uber. We have been piloting UberRUSH with multiple retailers for the last year.”

TechCrunch says it’s more than just UberRUSH from what it can see in the documents, with divers and couriers taking orders through a different app than the one used for normal UberRUSH orders. At some point, it appears drivers will be able to carry both humans and Uber Merchant orders through one app.

Uber Is Quietly Testing A Massive Merchant Delivery Program [TechCrunch]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Steven Depolo)

Nearly five months after Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay more than $35 million – including $11.1 million in redress to affected consumers – for their part in an illegal mortgage kickback scheme, the purported masterminds behind the “pay-to-play” arrangement are finally facing action from federal regulators for their shady dealings.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, along with the Maryland Attorney General, announced today that they reached a proposed deal with five of the six defendants previously working as executives for now-defunct title company Genuine Title and loan officers for various bank branches, that would bar them from the mortgage industry and require them to pay a total of $662,500 in penalties and refunds to affected consumers.

The proposed consent order stems from the individuals’ part in real estate closing company Genuine’s years-long scheme to provide cash, marketing materials and consumer information in exchange for mortgage referrals.

Under federal law, companies and individuals are prohibited from giving or receiving kickbacks in exchange for a referral of business related to a real-estate-settlement service.

According to the CFPB’s complaint [PDF], Jay Zukerberg, the owner of Genuine Title, along with director of marketing Brandon Glickstein, developed the scheme to win over more business.

The company offered to complete marketing duties for loan officers, such as purchasing, analyzing, and providing data on consumers, and creating letters with the loan officers’ contact information that the company printed, folded, stuffed into envelopes, and mailed.

In exchange for performing these services, loan officers working in the greater Baltimore area would refer homebuyers to the company for closing services.

At times when marketing services were not needed, the four loan officers named in today’s order would receive cash kickbacks from Genuine.

The CFPB and Maryland AG’s office allege that because Zukerberg and Glickstein knew it would look “fishy” if Genuine paid cash directly to the officers, they devise an operation in which the payments were funneled through companies owned by the four loan officers.

In all, the complaint alleges that Zukerberg and Glickstein arranged for cash payments to the loan officers from Genuine Title in amounts ranging from about $130,000 to $500,000.

The proposed enforcement order, if accepted by the court, requires Zukerberg to be banned from the mortgage industry for five years and pay $130,000 in redress and penalties. Glickman would also be banned from the mortgage industry for five years and required to pay $300,000 in redress.

Three of the four named loan officers would be banned from the industry for two years and must pay redress ranging from $30,000 to $65,000 each. The fourth loan officer declined to settle with the CFPB and attorney general and as a result action will proceed against the individual, the CFPB says.

The CFPB and state of Maryland’s action previously reached deals with the banks where the loan officers were employed, after investigators found more than 100 employees of Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase were allegedly involved in illegal tit-for-tatting with Genuine Title.

Wells Fargo agreed to pay $10.8 million in redress to consumers whose loans were involved in this scheme, along with another $24 million in civil penalties. For it’s part, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay back approximately $300,000 to affected consumers and $600,000 in civil penalties.

CFPB and State of Maryland Take Action Against “Pay-To-Play” Mortgage Kickback Scheme [CFPB]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

The final nail in Internet Explorer’s coffin came today, as Microsoft revealed its erstwhile web browser’s replacement: What had been known as Project Spartan is being introduced to the world as Microsoft Edge.

Microsoft announced Edge, which will be featured in its upcoming Windows 10 operating system, at the company’s BUILD conference, reports Ars Technica. In what is perhaps an homage to Explorer or maybe just a comfort thing, the “E” for “Edge” closely resembles the icon its predecessor used.

This may or may not be the icon, as seen on Twitter (via VentureBeat):

New kid on the block. http://pic.twitter.com/7EzMjxUrFf

— Kyle (@kylealden) April 29, 2015

Microsoft hopes this E fares better: The company’s systems chief Joe Belfiore noted that the “e” icon “now has a completely different and better meaning than it has for a while,” reports CNNMoney.

Edge will support modern browser functions, such as extensions, unlike Explorer. The browser touts a New Tab page that shows a user’s top pages, apps that go with those pages, featured apps and other things provided to Cortana, Microsoft’s digital personal assistant.

Microsoft’s “Project Spartan” browser is now called Microsoft Edge [Ars Technica]
‘Microsoft Edge’ will replace Internet Explorer [CNNMoney]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(frankieleon)

There are a lot of purchases you can make with the information on the front of a credit card. But ID thieves who have the card number, name, and expiration date will still hit a speedbump if they have to enter that (usually 3-digit) security code on the back of a victim’s card. Notice that we said “speedbump” and not “dead end,” because some scammers have figured out how to get this crucial info from their victims.

According to our colleagues at Consumer Reports, the security code scam works by taking advantage of the near-constant news of data breaches that have hit retailers in recent years.

Once a scammer has the main information for the card, they can call the unwitting victim, claiming to be from the bank or credit card network. The caller will say there has been a suspicious transaction alert on that card and asks the victim whether or not they made that purchase.

Since that transaction is entirely fictional, the victim will correctly state that they did not make the purchase. The caller then says they are going to open a fraud investigation ticket, and oh — by the by — can you please confirm you are the cardholder by providing the security code on the back?

Remember, the caller already has most of your card info so they can say things like “Can you verify the code on the card ending…” and then give you the actual final digits of your account.

Scammers are also good at spoofing phone numbers, so your caller ID might say “Bank of Whatever” or the number might match the phone number on the back of your card; that doesn’t mean the person is calling from that bank or that number.

Any time you get a fraud alert call:

•Don’t give the caller any information about your account—even if he already knows some of the details.

•Hang up the phone. Call the customer service number on the back of your credit card. Talk to the fraud or security department and ask about the unauthorized charges the caller told you about.

• Report the suspicious call to the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint or 877-FTC-HELP.

•Tell your friends, family, neighbors, and others about it. By spreading the word, you can help someone you care about avoid falling for a scam.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Phillip Pessar)

Moderately perceptive RadioShack employees could look around their stores and follow the news in recent years and tell that something was about to happen to their employer. Yet RadioShack employees had very little information about what was happening to their stores and whether they could expect to have jobs in the future.

The college town of Athens, Georgia will now be left with zero RadioShack stores. Sure, the people of Athens will muddle through, but how employees say that how they learned about the doomed state of their stores reminds us of the last days of Wet Seal. That chain, as you might recall, was a young women’s clothing retailer that recently shut down. Employees claim that they were assured the stores would stay open even as managers clearly knew that the opposite was true. “[T]hey told us specifically not to look for jobs, that everything was fine, and that we had low inventory because they were just going to remodel the store,” one former assistant manager says that Wet Seal higher-ups told her.

One RadioShack assistant manager in Athens told the Red & Black, an independent University of Georgia paper, that something similar happened…except that preliminary lists of stores that were going to be sold and stay open and stores that were going to close had been made public. We published an early list of proposed store closings on February 6, the day after the company declared bankruptcy.

The assistant manager told Red & Black that his regional manager didn’t know that the list of which stores would remain open had been released to the public as part of court documents, and continued to insist that his store would stay open.

Radioshack closings leave employees in dark [Red & Black]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Brad Clinesmith)

It’s been two years since we found out that the NSA has been quietly scooping up basically everyone’s phone records, willy-nilly, without warrants. The revelations of widespread surveillance freaked plenty of people out, but under existing law, the agency has acted legally. To get change, then, you’d need to change the law… and Congress has 33 days remaining in which to do exactly that.

Three key provisions of the Patriot Act will expire on June 1 of this year. The biggest is known as Section 215: that’s the part of the law that lets the NSA do those huge bulk phone data sweeps, in which basically all of us have been caught up.

With the expiration date looming on Section 215 and the other two provisions, Congress has about four weeks left to take one of three actions: they can either renew them wholesale, renew them partially with changes, or let the provisions all simply expire and cease being law.

Letting sections of the Patriot Act simply sunset doesn’t require Congress to do anything at all; inaction, therefore, is a choice — and one Congress is deeply unlikely to take. Meanwhile, there is a proposed bill in the Senate that would entirely extend the authorization for all parts of the Patriot Act, as is.

And in the middle, hovering conveniently in the position of political compromise, we have a new bill introduced yesterday in the House. Its full name is the unwieldy Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015, a fancy-pants backronym that makes it the USA FREEDOM Act.

USA Freedom seems reasonably likely to end up as law (at least, as compared to most bills). A previous version of the Act passed the House in 2014 but failed to advance in the Senate before the Congressional term expired. The new version once again has bipartisan support, but it also has something the first one didn’t: a serious looming deadline. The combination of compromise (which politicians like to say they support) plus impending time crunch is a big mark in the “likely to go somewhere” column.

So what, specifically, will this legislation do?

The full proposed bill (PDF) is pretty dense. So dense, in fact, that the House Judiciary Committee has provided a TL;DR fact sheet, as well as a chart (PDF) comparing this year’s version of the bill to last year’s version.

If USA Freedom works as advertised, it would, among other things:

• End all bulk data collection under Section 215
• Prohibit “large scale, indiscriminate collection” like a batch of all records from an entire state or ZIP code
• Make FISA court decisions available to the public
• Require transparency reporting on data collection from the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence
• Give tech companies “a range of options for describing how they respond” to orders for data

But USA Freedom is a far cry from ending surveillance. The bill would create a new call detail records program overseen by the FISA court, which means records would still be collected.

The bill would also create a “strictly limited emergency authority” under which the emergency use of Section 215 would still be authorized. The only difference is that the government would be required to destroy the collected information after the fact if a FISA court denies the application.

Ideally, supporters say, the new transparency requirements would make “stretched interpretations” of the justification provisions less likely.

Supporters of the new version include Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo as well as several software and tech industry trade groups and some digital rights advocacy groups. Google and several others also all called for Congress to pass USA Freedom’s 2014 incarnation as well.

However, many rights groups that supported reform in 2014, like the EFF and ACLU, are notably absent from the current support roster. They are instead continuing to push hard for a complete sunset of all the Patriot Act surveillance provisions.

Meanwhile, there are still plenty of questionable surveillance programs this bill won’t touch. And the Senate, working straight to the June 1 deadline, could significantly alter or weaken the proposal

The House Judiciary Committee is set to work over USA Freedom this week, and to try to get a version through the House as quickly as possible so that the Senate can start their turn. If the new legislation does become law, it would renew the three expiring portions of the Patriot Act until December, 2019.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

As we sip the last drops of champagne over the failure of the merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, an even bigger acquisition appears to be passing through the regulatory process with relative ease — that of AT&T and DirecTV. And with Comcast, TWC, Charter, and other cable operators all now looking for potential corporate spouses, their eyes may also be turning toward the wireless market.

During T-Mobile’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, CEO John Legere made it clear that the day is coming when people don’t think in terms of wireless companies versus fixed-line cable or fiber broadband.

“We think far too simplistically about the four major carriers and what the structure of the industry is going to be,” he explained, “without understanding that the tangential players in various industries are touching mobile players” in a way that’s going to drive new partnerships and acquisitions.

He repeatedly stated that video, music, and other content are all primarily moving online and that the Internet is all moving toward mobile.

“So there’s a real synergy,” between all these companies. “These other industries are in the same game that we’re in.”

“I’ve always said on consolidation that it’s not a matter of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of ‘when and how,’” said Legere, “and now I’m gonna add, ‘and who.’”

The T-Mo chief that that people need to stop thinking of cable and mobile as competitors, but as “potential partners and alternatives for each other in the future.”

Further consolidation among the existing wireless players seems unlikely. Following the FCC’s rejection of both the AT&T/T-Mobile deal and the Comcast/TWC merger, there appears to be a tendency to oppose acquisitions that would remove major players from the market or consolidate too many customers under one banner.

But Legere contends that when you just think in terms of delivering online content to consumers in all the ways they want it, “there’s a far more broad set of potential partnerships, integrations, and mergers that the United States could be looking at. In that case, I think you will see consolidation of a much broader set.”

The argument in favor of wireless-cable mergers is that the combined companies would likely complement each other rather, allowing the resulting business to offer both fixed and wireless broadband access without removing a player from either industry. In the AT&T/DirecTV deal, the two companies point out that AT&T will still sell wireless, landline, DSL, and fiber services without taking away from DirecTV’s satellite presence.

What remains to be seen is what conditions, if any, the FCC and Justice Dept. might try to place on that merger. If they aren’t too restrictive, it would not be surprising to see a company like TWC try to make a go at T-Mobile, or for Sprint’s parent company SoftBank try to make a play for a cable or satellite provider.

[via DSLreports.com]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

(Ken Fager)

Students are more dependent than ever on technology and the Internet for their education, but those same apps and online learning tools that help educate them could be putting their personal information at risk if shared improperly. Nearly a month after it was first expected, a pair of U.S. representatives have introduced a bill aiming to restrict third-party use of students’ sensitive personal data.

The New York Times Bits blog reports that the Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act of 2015 [PDF] was introduced with the intention to strengthen digital privacy protections for students in kindergarten though twelfth grade.

Under the bill – which was introduced by representatives Jared Polis of Colorado and Luke Messer of Indiana – technology companies would be prohibited from knowingly using or disclosing students’ personal information to tailor advertisements to them, as well as barring the companies from creating personal profiles of students unless it is for a school-related purpose.

The bill also requires technology companies to allow parents or educators to view and make revisions to student information, as well as request information be deleted if it is not needed for retention by schools. Parents would also be able to download any material their child has created through the service.

Although privacy and consumer groups previously expressed a desire for the bill to require companies to delete student information in the event of a merger or sale, the newly introduced legislation allows companies to sell or disclose student information as part of a merger or acquisition, provided the new owner continues to abide by restrictions in place when the data was first collected.

Companies would also be able to use and disclose aggregated unidentifiable student information in order to improve their own educational products or market their effectiveness.

Polis says in a statement that the bill, which was modeled in part by student privacy laws in California, was a needed improvement on current standards protecting student data.

“The status quo surrounding the protection of our student’s data is entirely unacceptable,” Polis said. “It’s like the Wild Wild West – there are few regulations protecting student’s privacy and parental rights, and the ones that do exist were written in an age before smartphones and tablets.”

He goes on to say that while the bill provides piece-of-mind to parents and consumer groups, it continue to encourage innovation and the evolution of education technology.

While Polis and Messer say that more than two dozen education groups, parent associations, industry leaders, and privacy advocates have backed the bill, the Times reports it faces a difficult battle by the opposition.

Legislators Introduce Student Digital Privacy Bill [The New York Times Bits Blog]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist