जनता का आदमी

When a drug patent nears its end, drug companies sometimes do really stupid, potentially illegal things to delay or prevent their bottom line being dinged by a lower-cost generic version. One drug company is accused of not just paying off a generic drug maker to delay the release of its version of two medications, but further hurting consumers by agreeing to not compete with the generic.

Pennsylvania-based Endo Pharmaceuticals — maker of brand-name opioid Opana ER and lidocaine patch Lidoderm — is accused of making these sorts of illegal deals with generic companies, according to a lawsuit [PDF] filed this week by the Federal Trade Commission.

According to the complaint, back in 2009 these two brand-name drugs accounted for 64% of Endo’s annual revenue, but generic competition was in the offing for both products.

So in 2010, the FTC says that Endo made a deal with California’s Impax Laboratories — a company that was trying to introduce a generic of Opana ER — to keep that generic off the market for another two-and-a-half years.

The complaint alleges that $40 million in cash changed hands, in the form of a “development and co-promotion deal” that the FTC alleges was nothing more than a smokescreen to hide the pay-for-delay scheme.

Impax received significantly more benefit from the second part of the deal — in which Endo agreed to not market its own generic to compete with Impax.

In general, the first generic drug maker to successfully file with the FDA gets a 180-day exclusivity period on the generic. But “exclusive” might be a misnomer, as the maker of the brand-name drug is allowed to offer a generic version at any time.

Thus, Endo would have been freely within its rights to sell an “authorized generic” (AG) version of Opana ER that competed with the Impax generic. Instead, the FTC says the company entered into a “no-AG agreement” that would allow Impax to enter the generic market without any competition for six months.

In total, the FTC claims that Impax reaped $112 million in benefits from this arrangement — not to mention the revenue generated by Endo during the 2.5 year extension for its brand-name drug — all while consumers were paying more than they should have.

And this was not an isolated incident. The FTC alleges that Endo made a similar deal in 2012 to protect its Lidoderm patch.

The company, along with its partner Teikoku Pharma of San Diego, allegedly made a deal with Watson Laboratories (now owned by Irish pharma giant Allergan) to keep a Lidoderm generic off the market for more than a year.

In return, Watson got nearly eight months of being the sole marketer for the generic. Endo also provided Watson with somewhere between $96 million to $240 million in free Lidoderm patches which it was then free to sell. Unfortunately, the FTC’s estimate of how much Watson made from this deal is redacted in the court documents.

Teikoku has already reached a settlement deal with the FTC that bars the company from engaging in “no-AG” agreements and other forms of reverse-payment for 20 years.

“Settlements between drug firms that include ‘no-AG commitments’ harm consumers twice – first by delaying the entry of generic drugs and then by preventing additional generic competition in the market following generic entry,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez in a statement. “This lawsuit reflects the FTC’s commitment to stopping pay-for-delay agreements that inflate the prices of prescription drugs and harm competition, regardless of the form they take.”

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

While it might matter to some consumers that slave labor was involved in making that chocolate bar on the grocery store shelf, food companies like Nestlé and Hershey don’t have to disclose what kind of workers are involved in the production process on product labels, a judge ruled this week.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Spero ruled that the two chocolate companies don’t have a duty to disclose that their cocoa suppliers use child slave labor, Courthouse News reports, basically because there’s not enough room for such things.

“There are countless issues that may be legitimately important to many customers, and the courts are not suited to determine which should occupy the limited surface area of a chocolate wrapper,” Spero wrote in a pair of identical rulings related to two class actions against Nestlé and Hershey.

Two customers sued the companies back in September 2015, claiming that both Nestlé and Hershey were violating California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act and the state’s unfair competition and false advertising laws by not disclosing labor uses in its supply chain on chocolate product labels.

Another class action was filed by a customer against Mars, but his appeal of U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg’s dismissal of the case is pending in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals at the moment.

According to a Tulane University study cited in the complaints, more than 4,000 children are forced to work at plantations in Ivory Coast producing cocoa. Some of those young ones are sold by parents to traffickers, and others are kidnapped, the study says. Others may have migrated voluntarily but are then snapped up by traffickers and sold to recruiters or farmers, the complaint alleges. Once they’re sent to isolated farmers, they’re locked up at night, threatened with beatings, and forced to work long days even when they’re sick, the complaint states.

It wasn’t enough that the plaintiffs wouldn’t have bought Hershey or Nestlé products if they’d known about these practices, however, Spero found, referencing Seeborg’s ruling in dismissing the other consumer’s actions.

“The court agrees with Judge Seeborg’s conclusion that the weight of authority limits a duty to disclose under the Consumer Legal Remedies Act to issues of product safety, unless disclosure is necessary to counter an affirmative misrepresentation,” he wrote. “Further, the court agrees with Judge Seeborg and Hershey that some bright-line limitation on a manufacturer’s duty to disclose is sound policy, given the difficulty of anticipating exactly what information some customers might find material to their purchasing decisions and wish to see on product labels.”

Just because California law includes a duty to disclose, that doesn’t extend to “‘all information [that] may persuade a consumer to make different purchasing decisions,’ ” Spero said, citing the Mars case.

Spero dismissed the unfair competition claim against the companies, finding that the plaintiffs hadn’t identified any legislative policy that would require the companies to disclose their supplier’s slave-labor practice on product labels, and that those disclosures are not required under the law.

He also put the kibosh on the false advertising claim, saying they were based on “pure omissions” instead of actual misleading statements.

We’ve reached out to Nestlé and Hershey on the question of whether the companies work with suppliers that use child slave labor, and will update this post if we hear back.

Hershey & Nestle Duck Suits Over Slave Labor [Courthouse News]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

What’s worse than sitting down with your laptop only to have the hot computer burn your legs? When that laptop catches on fire. And that’s why Toshiba is recalling the laptop battery packs used in 39 of its computer models.

According to a notice filed with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the lithium-ion battery packs in approximately 91,000 Toshiba laptops can overheat, posing burn and fire hazards to consumers.

The battery packs were used in several Toshiba computers, including the Portege, Satellite, and Tecra laptops, sold between June 2011 and January 2016.

In addition to the laptops directly affected by the recall, Toshiba cautions that other computers may be affected if their owners purchased extra battery packs or had their batteries replaced during servicing.

A complete list of battery pack part numbers included in this recall can be found on Toshiba’s website.

Toshiba says it has received four reports of the battery packs overheating and melting. However, no injuries have been reported.

Affected laptop batteries can be identified by the model, part, and serial number. If a consumers’ battery has been recalled, Toshiba suggests users power off the laptop, remove the battery, and request a replacement battery pack.

Until a replacement battery pack is received, consumers should use the laptop by plugging into AC power only.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

On our master list of known Sears and Kmart stores that will be closing in coming months, one item kind of stands out: one store in Albuquerque plans to cut the size of its store in half and close the Auto Center, renting out the rest of the store. Sears appears to be using the same plan in other markets, including three stores in California.

At least, that’s the speculation of Sacramento Business Journal, which noticed rental brochures for retail spaces that looked like half of local Sears atores.

The addresses matched up, and the stores happen to be in malls where the Sears store had been sold to Seritage Growth Properties, a real estate investment trust that shares many investors with Sears, including manifesto-writing CEO Eddie Lampert.

When Sears decides to close or downside a store, Seritage is able to rent the unoccupied space out to anyone it likes.

None of this should be news to Consumerist readers, who have known for a few years now that Sears Heritage has been trying to take in roommates to save money. They don’t need all of the retail space, so it makes sense to shrink the store size down and pay less rent to the company’s own real estate trust.

Sears appears to be cutting three local stores in half [business Journal]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

While we don’t know all the details of Amazon’s long-anticipated Prime Air delivery drones just yet, we can guess at some of the specifics along the way. And if a recent patent application the company filed means anything, the drones may have a few things to say.

Amazon filed a patent for automated aerial vehicle technology that has two parts: first is the use of multiple propellers rotating in different directions to cut down on noise, notes The Register. One propeller goes one direction to provide lift.

“While the second propeller may cause lift of the AAV,” the patent suggests, it “may also be operable to produce sound that cancels noise generated by the first propeller.”

The other part of the patent is also split into two parts, and involves using propellers to communicate with folks on the ground.

First, the propellers can be used to make sounds, the patent says, to do things like warn people to get out of the drone’s way.

“Suppose, for instance, that the AAV were delivering an inventory item to a location,” the patent says. “Upon approaching the location, the AAV determines (e.g., based on a video signal fed as an input parameter to the controller via a camera) that a person is situated at or near an intended or a suitable landing area corresponding to the delivery location.”

That information might trigger the drone to utter something like “Watch out!” or other warning messages. The controller can also determine if such a warning is needed, and change up the speed of the propeller to produce “a series of sounds that are audibly perceptible as ‘Watch out!’ ”

Another method would have the drones figuring out whether they need to alert humans that they’re around. In some situations, “light sources [e.g., light-emitting diodes (LEDs)] coupled to one or multiple propellers may be caused to intermittently emit light in a synchronized manner while the propellers are rotating to generate patterns that are visibly perceptible as ‘HELLO’.”

Oh, hey there, drone.

Amazon plans drones with talking propellors [The Register]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

While the women on the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team have outshone the men’s team — winning three World Cup championships since 1991 and gold medals in all but one of the Summer Olympics since 1994 — they remain significantly underpaid than their underperforming male counterparts. Today, five members of that championship team filed an action with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that the U.S. Soccer Federation is unfairly discriminating against female players.
In the complaint — disclosed this morning by the law firm representing players Carli Llloyd, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Hope Solo — the reigning World Cup champs contend that the USSF pays male players upwards of four times what the women get, even though the female team is a significant generator of revenue for the organization.

“Recently, it has become clear that the Federation has no intention of providing us equal pay for equal work,” said Rapinoe in a statement released today.

Goalie Solo explains that “The numbers speak for themselves… We are the best in the world, have three World Cup Championships, four Olympic Championships, and the USMNT get paid more to just show up, than we get paid to win major championships.”

Their attorney Jeffrey Kessler — who has represented numerous professional sports players associations in their contract negotiations — claims that recent developments in the collective bargaining process between the team and the Federation forced the players’ hands to pursue the EEOC action.

The Women’s National Team Players Association submitted what Kessler terms a “reasonable proposal” in January, with the underlying idea being equal pay for equal work.

For example, players on the men’s team earn $68,750 each if the team makes it to the World Cup. That’s more than double the $30,000 amount paid to players on the women’s team for the same feat.

But the Federation responded to the proposal by suing the players association, seeking to have the court clarify that the current agreement — accepted in 2013 — remains valid and unbreakable through the end of the year.

The players’ EEOC complaint argues that “There are no legitimate non-discriminatory reasons for this gross disparity of wages, nor can it be explained away by any bona fide seniority, merit or incentive system or any other factor other that sex.”

The woman’s team players have also accused the Federation of favoring the men’s team when it comes from everything from playing surfaces to travel.

“We want to play in top-notch, grass-only facilities like the U.S. Men’s National Team,” said Morgan, referencing the potentially dangerous turf surfaces that the team has had to play on. “We want to have equitable and comfortable travel accommodations, and we simply want equal treatment.”

While the women’s team is currently gearing up for the upcoming Olympics in Rio, there is no set timeline for the EEOC to investigate and make a determination on these allegations.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Sprint has a deal that might be attractive to some out there, but there’s a bit of math involved: customers can get access to Amazon Prime as a monthly add-on to their regular bill. Okay, cool — but then there’s the price. It’s $10.99 per month for free two-day-shipping, access to Amazon’s music and video services, and all the other stuff that comes with a Prime membership.

That monthly price adds up to $131.88 a year (h/t The Verge), which is $32.88 more than the $99 regular Prime customers pay for a year’s access.

So why would you ever want to pay more money than everyone else for something? Perhaps people may want to try Prime for more than a month but not an entire year. Because once you’ve used your Prime membership — either to buy something with two-day shipping or access Prime videos and music, etc. — you’re locked into paying that $99 for the entire year.

Or maybe you just don’t have the $99 to shell out all at one time. Both scenarios only make sense if you pay attention to how many months you’ve got under your belt with the Sprint program. Once you hit nine months, you’ll have spent only a tiny bit less than that $99 for a year, so take that into account before you end up paying too much.

The offer is available to both existing and new customers, Sprint says.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

A group of Target warehouse employees in New York filed a class-action seeking lawsuit against the retailer, accusing the company of misclassifying workers with low-level management responsibilities so they wouldn’t receive overtime pay. 

The lawsuit, first filed in New York Supreme Court in December, claims that Target violated state labor laws by misclassifying “operations group leaders” as exempt from overtime, Reuters reports.

According to the original complaint, the Target employee claims he was required to work approximately 48 to 54 hours per week as well as being required to attend a 90-minute meeting once a month and another 90-minute meeting each quarter.

In addition to these duties, the plaintiff claims he would routinely take his work home after hours, emailing updates to supervisors.

“However, [he] never received any overtime pay of time and one-half his regular rate of pay for any hours worked over 40 hours in a week,” the suit states.

The man says that because Target misclassified his duties, he is owed approximately eight to 14 hours per week of overtime for the duration of his employment, which was from 2011 to 2015.

The man’s lawyer tells Reuters that the retailer “controls very carefully what the group leaders do such that they are not left with meaningful executive authority that would satisfy exemption under the law.”

The suit seeks to represent all current and former Operations Group Leaders who worked at the company’s New York warehouse.

According to a notice for removal [PDF] filed by Target — to move the case from the New York Supreme Court to federal court — the retailer estimates that the class would cover 209 individuals.

While Target denies the lawsuit’s allegations in its reply [PDF] to the original suit, the company did “quantify the amount of overtime damage” being sought by the plaintiff and proposed class as more than $5 million.

A spokesperson for Target tells Reuters that the company’s distribution center group leaders are properly classified as exempt, salaried team members and said these department leaders hire, manage and lead teams of up to 50 people.

“They are competitively compensated and rewarded for their performance. We dispute the allegations in the suit,” she said.

Target workers in New York sue over not being paid overtime [Reuters]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Last year, we told you of a long-running dispute over a Florida state law that says skim milk must be categorized as “imitation milk product” unless the dairy adds vitamins to the final product. This week, a federal court finally chimed in on the matter, upholding the state regulation.

This case goes back to 2012, when a company called Ocheesee Creamery found out from the Florida Department of Agriculture that — because Ocheesee didn’t add any vitamins to its skim milk — it would have to be labeled as a “Non-Grade ‘A’ Milk Product, Natural Milk Vitamins Removed.”

The state contends that some vitamins and nutrients are removed when the cream is skimmed off of whole milk, and so skim milk must re-introduce those items to be nutritionally equal to milk. The Ocheesee folks counter that they should not be forced to introduce additives to their skim milk.

There are also federal standards with regard to replacing nutrients that have been removed from a product, but they only apply to milk sold for interstate commerce. The milk in this case was only intended for sale in Florida.

In 2014, the creamery filed a lawsuit [PDF] against the state, arguing that its First Amendment rights were being violated. By forcing Ocheesee to either add vitamins or accept the “imitation milk product” designation would “confuse and mislead its customers by mislabeling its safe, all-natural, pure skim milk.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Central Hudson Gas v. Public Service Commission of NY established a multi-part test for determining when government restrictions on commercial speech violate the First Amendment:

Does the government have a substantial interest in restricting that speech? Does that restriction directly advance the government’s interest? Is the restriction only as extensive as it needs to be to serve that interest? And is the speech being restricted misleading or concern an unlawful activity?

In granting summary judgment [PDF] in favor of the state, the judge notes that state and federal regulations regarding “standards of identity and nutrition standards for foods easily pass muster under Central Hudson.”

That would include, explains the court, the state and federal requirements regarding skim milk.

“A state can recognize — and indeed deliberately create — a standard meaning of a term used to describe a food product, including, in this instance, skim milk,” writes the judge.

Ocheesee had argued in court that it had sold its skim milk for years without complaint or problems, and that its conception of skim milk — literally, milk that has had the fat skimmed off — is what most people understand the term to mean.

The judge agreed that it is “undoubtedly true that a typical consumer would think ‘skim milk’ is simply milk from which the cream has been skimmed.” However, counters the court, that only serves to indicate that these identity and nutrient standards work.

“[C]onsumers take for granted the nutritional value of skim milk without even knowing that the vitamins have been restored,” explains the judge. “The record includes a survey that confirms this conclusion: most consumers buy milk for its nutritional value, and most expect skim milk to include the same vitamin content as whole milk.”

The judge contends that if you accepted Ocheesee’s argument that the everyday consumer’s understanding of a product makes it okay to disregard state and federal standards, it would “would initiate a frontal assault on the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and its state counterparts, whose validity was established long ago.”

And, concludes the court, even if Ocheesee were not misleading consumers by labeling its product “skim milk,” the state regulations would still withstand the remaining three-point test under Central Hudson.

“The governmental interest in establishing a standard of identity and nutritional standards for milk is substantial,” explains the judge. “The challenged restriction directly advances that interest; indeed, the match is nearly perfect. And the restriction is not more extensive than is necessary to serve that interest; a standard of identity works only if products that do not meet the standard cannot appropriate the identity.”

As you’d expect, the folks at Ocheesee were not pleased with the ruling.

“I just want to tell the truth,” says creamery owner Mary Lou Wesselhoeft. “Our skim milk was pure skim milk, and nobody was ever confused when we called it skim milk. I refuse to lie to my customers, so I have stopped selling skim milk until I am allowed to tell the truth again.”

The creamery was represented in this case by the Institute for Justice, which says it plans to appeal the ruling.

“Businesses have the right to tell the truth and the government does not have the power to change the dictionary,” explains IJ Florida Office Managing Attorney Justin Pearson in a statement.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Remember last year when an airplane door panel fell from the sky, landing on a North Carolina golf course? While that was certainly an unusual and scary situation, an Arizona woman can now top it: an airplane emergency slide dropped from the heavens and landed outside her house. 

A Mesa woman tells AZFamily that she’s used to hearing the sounds of planes flying above, but she got more than she ever imagined on Wednesday.

“It was a loud bang and then the house actually shook,” the woman recalls, noting that at first she thought the commotion may have been a downed tree. “It just smelled like sulfur burning.”

When she went to investigate, she found it was anything but a tree.

Someone else had called 911 to report that they had witnessed an object falling from an airplane, AZFamily reports.

“They kind of put two and two together that this must be the emergency slide,” the homeowner says.

A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that the object was indeed an emergency slide and that the agency was investigating the incident.

The slide belonged to an Atlas Air Boeing 767 that was on its final approach to Sky Harbor Airport when the right over-the-wing emergency slide deployed at about 2,800 feet.

The plane, which was carrying only crew members, was able to land safely, the FAA, which is investigating the ordeal, said.

While the only casualty of the unusual event was a tree in the woman’s yard, she can’t help but worry about what could have happened.

“There’s Riverview Park literally in my backyard and the Cubs are currently playing games right now,” she said. “If it had fallen on a car, it still would have been devastating.”

Emergency escape slide from jumbo jet falls from plane and hits Mesa home [AZFamily]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

The “Share a Coke” campaign was a huge success for Coca-Cola, boosting sales as people scooped up bottles with their own or family members’ names. Other than bringing names back for a third year in the United States, how could the beverage giant replicate the success? Instead of names, now they’re switching to song lyrics, which are less personalized but can sometimes be even more personal.

A few examples that a Coke executive shared with Buzzfeed News include famous lines from super-famous longs like “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers, or “We Are the Champions” by Queen. Those may be poor examples, actually, since the lyric shared for both of those is also the title of the song,

You’ll be able to hunt through coolers for your favorite lyrics starting in April, and the bottles will be available through summer. Coke plans to target different songs and genres of music to different regions, based on research about what’s popular in different parts of the country.

“Share A Coke” Trades In Names For Song Lyrics [Buzzfeed]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

We’re no strangers to the idea of one unruly passenger prompting a commercial flight to change course, but who would have ever thought someone could disrupt a flight by doing something so peaceful as yoga and meditation? Folks, it can happen, and it did.

According to the FBI, a recent United Airlines flight heading from Honolulu International Airport to Narita International Airport in Japan turned around because a passenger refused to stop doing yoga in the back of the plane and return to his seat, the Associated Press reports.

The FBI says in its complaint that the man told them he didn’t feel like sitting in his seat during the meal service, so he retreatd to the back of the plane to do yoga and meditate. When his wife and flight attendants told him he had to return to his seat, he got angry.

The man “pushed his wife because she was trying to make him stop,” the complaint said. “He felt that she was siding with the flight crew.”

He also attempted to head-butt and bite some Marines on the flight who tried to get him back to his seat, Assistant U.S. Attorney Darren Ching said at the man’s detention hearing Wednesday.

The complaint says he threatened to kill passengers and yelled that there was no god. As for what caused him to fly into a rage? He felt like the crew was ordering him around, Ching said at the hearing.

After his arrest, a judge ordered that the man be released on a $25,000 bond but with certain conditions, including that he must stay on the island of Oahu for the time being.

FBI: Man arrested after doing yoga, meditating on airplane [Associated Press]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

For almost exactly a year now, users of Amazon’s ordering gadget, the Dash button, have been able to quickly restock their supply of nearly 30 household products like Tide, Cottonelle, Bounty, and Ziplock. Today, the e-commerce giant announced it would add close to 100 additional products — many not of the household variety — to the line-up, including Energizer batteries, Stayfree feminine pads, Peet’s Coffee, Red Bull, Doritos, and Trojan condoms. As was previously the case, the gadget can be purchased for $4.99, but for a limited time Amazon will provide customers a $4.99 credit for each Dash button they buy. [Amazon]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

While the debate about encryption (brought to the foreground by the recent fight between Apple and the FBI) continues to rage on, at least one U.S. senator has clearly had enough, and is ready to draw a line in the sand.

Speaking at the RightsCon conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, Sen. Ron Wyden (OR) called on those in attendance — mostly members of the tech community, and advocates for consumer, civil, and human rights — to support his efforts in Washington to protect encryption, security, and privacy for all Americans.

In his remarks, Wyden explained that he was motivated, in part, by the string of data breaches involving retailers and government agencies that now seem to occur on a regular basis.

“We had a series of high-profile hacks at the same time — Target, Anthem, OPM,” said the senator, “and understandably, consumers said, ‘We want better security for our devices,’ and companies began to respond.”

Encryption, Wyden argued, is a vital part of that protection. It’s part of every card transaction, it’s what protects kids’ data: “Really our whole life might be on a smartphone — our health records, our personal communications — and it protects our national security secrets from falling into the hands of countries that do not wish us well.”

But of course, it’s not that straightforward. Improved encryption protects the data of both the law-abiding and the law-violating.

Law enforcement and tech — most prominently in the form of Apple and the FBI — have been at loggerheads about whether, when, and how to limit or work around encryption.

In the course of that ongoing discussion, it “seems like it would be a pretty good idea for agencies to hire some of the people in this room,” cracked Wyden. “But what I am not going to support — I am not going to support an effort to weaken strong encryption.”

At issue, Wyden later said, is — well, basically everything.

At this point in history, the existence, scope, and affordability of complex technology is so pervasive that there is no other era like it.

“There are very, very few places we can expect real privacy [anymore], not even our most personal spaces,” said the senator. “Even our very thoughts often end up recorded on the technology we carry.”

Wyden focused heavily on governments’ new abilities to listen in and follow their citizens, but the same applies to an extraordinary array of private companies as well.

“For centuries,” he explained, “individual liberty was protected by technological limitations. Gathering real-time personal information about a country’s entire population was impossible. It would have required more resources than any government could muster.”

He then alluded to 1984, the famous novel by George Orwell, and said that the technology at play now has outpaced even that popular literary touchstone, which warns of government’s invasions into citizens’ private lives.

“Your television screen can indeed watch you,” he said, “along with more and more gadgets that we wear, carry or live with every day.” The files that can be compiled on basically anyone with connected gadgets are more enormous and detailed than they have ever been.

The New Compact

To that end, Wyden introduced a policy platform he calls “The New Compact for Security and Liberty in the Digital Age,” something of a mouthful. The new compact is built around five core principles.

First, and perhaps most controversially, Wyden says we should end government campaigns against strong encryption.

“Encryption is one of the best defenses an individual has to protect himself or herself in the digital world,” he argued, adding:

“Without encryption, the technologies we live with would enable thieves to take not only our wallets and purses, but our entire life savings in the blink of an eye.

“Without encryption, connected technologies could be perverted to plan home invasions, abductions, and worse. Baby monitors and wi-fi enabled dolls have already been hacked. Cars have been hacked. Personal photos of the rich and famous have been hacked. Health records and credit cards and millions of sensitive government documents have been hacked.

“Without encryption, the most personal affairs of every individual, whom they spend time with, where they go, and what they think could be laid bare despite their best efforts to keep that information private. Even with encryption, poor implementation and carelessness can leave an individual exposed, but encryption gives individuals a fighting chance at maintaining digital security in the modern world.”

Secondly, Wyden said lawmakers need to strengthen the protections on data that individuals share, often unwittingly, with private business.

“I propose to you today … that individuals do not lose their privacy rights just because they share some of their personal information with a particular company,” Wyden announced.

It’s not really possible to live in 2016 without sharing some data with private companies, and in many cases we make those choices voluntarily: we use apps and social networks and services and wearable tech, and we get something beneficial out of that exchange.

But that data, once transmitted, can then legally go to any other third party without Fourth Amendment rights attached. In other words: data, once given to Company A, can be legally no longer considered yours alone to give, but Company A’s to do with as they like (within the bounds of the law).

“There is a huge, glaring problem with that logic,” Wyden said. “When you share your information with a single private company, that is not the same thing as making it public.”

“Your phone company may have records of who you call, and your bank may have records of how you spend your money,” he continued, “but your contract with them will have rules for when and how they are allowed to share that information.”

And that, Wyden said, should hold true for the digital world as well.

“When I post a new profile picture on Facebook, or send out a Tweet… I’ve chosen to make that information public,” the senator explained. “But when I send an email to my wife … my service provider and I have an agreement that my information will stay private. [But] the premise in current law is that I have agreed to make that information public just because my service provider is holding it.”

“And that premise,” Wyden concluded, “is simply absurd.”

Wyden then ran through his third, fourth, and fifth key platform proposals, saying that: Congress needs to hold more open hearings to deal with surveillance laws publicly; that “defenders of digital rights” need to be on their guard against subtle changes to extant law; and finally, that it is important for everyone to realize that law enforcement does have a valid job to do, and needs to come up with a way to do it.

But really what his effort needs, Wyden exhorted the room, is work from advocates to drive the point home in public.

In one day in Jan. 2012, Wyden reminded the room, basically the entire Internet went into protest mode against the controversial anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA, drumming up a tremendous tide of opposition to the proposed legislation.

“In a few days before that vote,” Wyden said, “More than 10 million Americans weighed in. Calls and letters and emails… You might remember the Internet going dark. And about 36 hours after this began I got a call,” and was told that the scheduled vote to move the bills forward was cancelled.

“So when the dust settles, everybody now knows that it can be done!” he explained. “Those who believe in a free and open Internet, those who want an encryption policy that assures we have more security rather than less security, I want to ask you as the community did when it came together back in 2012: I want to ask you to join me in working together once again to make sure a free and open internet, and policies that ensure security and liberty are the law of the land.”

“We did it once,” he concluded to applause, “let’s do it again!”

Wyden’s platform — particularly doubling down on encryption and creating more data protections — would indeed improve consumer protections in the U.S. However, realistically, even with public opinion rallied strongly around him, it seems unlikely that most — or perhaps even any — of these principles would see significant action in the near term.

That’s because 2016 is a major election year, with all of the House and a third of the Senate (including Wyden) up for re-election in November.

Congress has about seven months to act between then and now and frankly, a lot of that time is going to be spent campaigning —  on the trail, on the chamber floors, and, of course, while speaking at conferences.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

जनता का आदमी

One of Apple’s biggest concerns about being compelled to assist the FBI in bypassing the security measures on the iPhone was that it would be just the first of many requests to get around the device’s encryption, thus increasing the odds of this work-around getting into the hands of hackers. Now comes news that the FBI — which was able to crack the iPhone lockdown without Apple’s assistance — is offering to unlock Apple devices for other law enforcement agencies.

The AP reports that the FBI has agreed to assist prosecutors in Arkansas by unlocking Apple devices belonging to a pair of teenagers charged with murder.

One of the teens was slated to go to trial next week, but after news broke earlier this week that the FBI had been able to bypass the iPhone encryption, the judge in the case agreed to delay proceedings until June so that prosecutors could seek assistance from the FBI in unlocking an iPhone and an iPad they believe contain evidence of the suspects’ plans for the July 2015 murder of a 66-year-old couple in Conway, AR.

The Prosecuting Attorney for Faulkner County now tells the AP that the federal law enforcement agency has agreed to use its recently devised technique to bypass the security on the suspects’ devices.

Recently released data from the American Civil Liberties Union shows the extent to which the FBI and other federal agencies have sought court orders to compel Apple and Google to assist in unlocking iPhones and Android smartphones.

Many of the more than 63 instances cited in the ACLU report involve phones that were seized before the two companies upgraded their operating systems in late 2014. Those upgrades now mean that neither Apple nor Google have easy backdoor access to users’ devices. It also means that complying with court orders to assist the FBI would require Apple or Google to come up with a way to weaken the privacy measures they put in place.

Google has said that is has yet to receive a court order compelling the company to bypass these upgraded security measures, but that it would challenge any such order if it received one.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Would you eat a burger from Chipotle? No, not at Chipotle, but a fast-casual burger restsaurant that uses the same food-sourcing and cooking methods, and has a similar vibe and a GMO-free menu? The company, which also runs pizza and pan-Asian noodle restaurants modeled on its main brand, trademarked the phrase “Better Burger,” which sounds like a nice name for a burger place.

The Chipotle brand name might be a bit tainted right now, which might make the idea of expanding their business under a familiar model but a new brand name an appealing idea. The company’s other brands, ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen and Pizzeria Locale, are relatively small now, with fewer than ten outlets of each open now.

In an e-mail to Bloomberg, which noticed the original trademark application, a Chipotle spokesperson said that the company is “exploring” the burger idea, describing it as a “growth seed” alongside the other two chains. Their business model could extend to more than pizzas and ramen, he points out: company executives and representatives “have noted before that the Chipotle model could be applied to a wide variety of foods,” he e-mailed.

In a strange parallel, McDonald’s, which at one point owned 90% of Chipotle, recently trademarked what could be a new slogan, “The simpler the better,” which suggests that it may continue its strange marketing of itself as a restaurant serving artisanal, almost-homemade food.

Chipotle Considers Opening Chain Under ‘Better Burger’ Name [Bloomberg]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Just about any pay-TV or Internet service provider (often one in the same) lets new customers sign up online. You can do the whole process — check your address for availability (even if the company’s database is dreadfully wrong), pick a service tier, schedule an installation appointment, and even have your credit history checked — all without talking to a single human being. But if you need to cancel that same service, you likely have to spend quite a long time talking to someone on the phone, explaining that you simply don’t want to give their company any more money.

A recently introduced piece of legislation in California, AB 2867, is hoping to compel cable companies and ISPs to offer the option of one-click cancelation on their websites.

The bill’s sponsor, Assemblyman Mike Gatto from Los Angeles, argues that “if you are able to sign up for a service online, you should also be able to cancel it the same way.”

And that’s exactly what the bill’s language currently states:
“If a cable or Internet service provider enables an individual to subscribe to its services through an Internet Web site, it shall also enable all of its customers to cancel their subscriptions through the Internet Web site.”

The bill has the support of Ryan Block, who famously recorded a needy Comcast retention employee demanding that Ryan explain his reason for canceling service. A call that Comcast admitted was “embarrassing” and “painful,” even though the employee was doing “what we trained him to do.”

“Two years ago my wife and I called to cancel our service, and as is usually the case, that call was pretty unpleasant,” said Block in a statement about the California bill, which he believes “would finally allow most customers to be able to cancel their service online, without having to talk to someone whose job is specifically to prevent you from canceling.”

While Los Angeles was spared having to go through a merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable and the customer service nightmare that would have resulted from that marriage, TWC — the predominant provider in the area — is nearing a merger with Charter, meaning there will inevitably be hiccups as the two companies consolidate staffs, hardware, and customers.

This particular bill, if passed, would only require this change in California, but as we’ve seen in other cases — most recently the Vermont GMO-labeling rules — it’s sometimes easier for national companies to just make a blanket countrywide policy change instead of customizing a product for just one state.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Each year during tax time millions of consumers put their financial future in the hands of strangers, trusting that these tax preparers — who are largely unregulated — know the rules, will get them the best possible result (hopefully a refund), and won’t sell them on a product that costs more than it’s worth. But in the world of complicated tax codes and credits, consumers continue to face a long list of risks, including untrained preparers, undisclosed fees, and dangerous refund anticipation products. 

These are just a few of the issues — and financial dangers — that the National Consumer Law Center and Consumer Federation of America are warning consumers about in their annual Tax Time Report [PDF].

“There’s a minefield of dangers for the tens of millions of consumers who use paid tax preparers to fill out their most important financial document of the year,” Chi Chi Wu, staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, and author of the report, said in a statement. “The hazards range from losing a chunk of their refund for unnecessary financial products, to errors or even fraud committed by unregulated preparers.”

Unprepared Tax Preparers
NCLC, CFA, and a host of other consumer groups and government agencies have previously highlighted the dangers of using untrained and unregulated tax preparers, but it’s worth noting again that there are just four states that actually have laws in place that require paid tax preparers to meet minimum education, competency, or training standards.

In fact, a 2013 study by the NCLC found that 47 states have stricter regulations for barbers than they did for paid tax preparers.

These ill-prepared preparers can expose consumers to potential error and even fraud. These risks were highlighted in a “mystery shopper” report from NCLC last year that found inaccuracies in 27 out of the 29 tax returns prepared by paid tax preparers.

While taxpayers may not be aware of the lack of regulation or training for paid preparers, they certainly expect these professionals to be held to certain standards.

A recent poll conducted by CFA as part of the new Tax Time report found that 80% of the public supports requiring paid tax preparers to pass a test administered by the government that would ensure that paid preparers have the knowledge and training to complete taxpayer returns correctly, while 83% of respondents support licensing requirements for preparers.

Another 56% believe that paid preparers should have special training but don’t need a degree and 31% of the public believes that paid tax preparers should have a college degree in accounting.

Even large chains of tax prep offices are not immune from ill-trained and unscrupulous preparers. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice sued to shut down a South Carolina franchisee of the huge Liberty Tax Service company for filing fraudulent returns. Among other accusations in the lawsuit, preparers allegedly gave customers fictional jobs based on their hobbies and told them to claim children that don’t exist.

While errors perpetrated by ill-prepared tax preparers can certainly wreak havoc on the refund a consumer receives, it isn’t the only danger lurking inside the walls of the local tax preparation office.

Refund Anticipation Products
Years after high cost Refund Anticipation Loans (RALs) were all but removed from tax preparation offices, NCLC and CFA say a new generation of these unnecessary and costly financial products are being pushed by tax preparers.

When banks exited the RAL market in 2012, they left a hole for non-bank entities to fill, namely payday loan companies.

According to the new report, non-bank and “no-fee” RALs have been cropping up with increased frequency around the country.

“This year, some lenders are offering a new version of RALs that purportedly does not impose a charge directly on the consumer,” the report found. “However, some of these “no fee” RALs do appear to impose a cost in terms of a higher RAC fee. Also, there is concern that some preparers may pass the cost of the loans onto the taxpayer through increased tax preparation or junk fees.”

Tax preparation offices across the country are also now offering Refund Anticipation Checks (RACs). Much like RALs, RACs are a financial product used to deliver tax refunds and to pay for tax preparation fees by deducting them from the refund.

Under a RAC, a bank will open a temporary account into which the IRS direct deposits the refund monies. After the refund is deposited, the bank issues the consumer a check or prepaid card and closes the temporary account.

NCLC and CFA found that RACs, of which 21.6 million were issued in 2014, do not deliver refunds any faster than the IRS, despite charging consumers fees between $25 to $60.

Difficult To Compare Fees
As with past reports, the NCLC and CFA found that it was increasingly difficult to obtain tax preparation fee information before signing on the dotted line.

Tax preparation is one of the few services that do not provide meaningful price information to consumers, the report found.

And when fees can be as high as $400 to $500, it’s important for consumers to know how much they’ll shell out ahead of time. Yet, ask a paid preparer for an estimate on what it will cost you and they may flat-out refuse to give you a figure. They may also give you a vague estimate that they aren’t locked into and which could be very different from the actual costs.

“The lack of transparency and disclosure in tax preparation fees is appalling,” Wu said in a statement. “Without adequate price information, it’s a complete failure of the competitive market.”

According to the CFA’s poll, 89% of respondents support requiring paid preparers to supply an upfront list of fees.

“It is not surprising that the public overwhelmingly supports requiring upfront pricing from paid preparers –households need every penny of their refunds and should be able to comparison shop  paid preparers for the best value just like they can for other services,” CFA senior policy advocate Michael Best, said in a statement.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

One feature of the Google-owned navigation app Waze that I hear is very useful is its sometimes-controversial crowdsourced police alerts, which warn users when there’s a speed trap ahead. Now the app is adding a feature which your GPS from the last decade may have had: it will warn you when you’re over the speed limit.

Speed limits are complex, since they can include school zones, construction zones, and varying limits along the same highway. You might wonder what the limit is when you’ve just turned onto an unfamiliar road, and Waze will tell you if you’re speeding –– or if you’re a preset speed over the official limit, like 5 or 10 miles per hour over.

The feature has rolled out in 20 countries, which do not include the United States or Waze’s home country of Israel. They promise that support in the rest of the world is coming “soon.”

In some large cities, the app has compiled data about intersections that it considers especially dangerous, and will warn users to be especially cautious when approaching them, according to PC Magazine.

Here’s what you should remember about those speed limits, though: like must of the rest of road data within Waze, the information is crowdsourced, coming from the app’s community of users and super-users, its map editors. That means that the information is updated more often than commercial GPS apps might be, but trust it as far as you ever trust crowdsourced data.

For our international readers and people with travel planned, the countries where the feature is turned on are Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, El Salvador, France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad, Tobago, and Uruguay.

Avoid Tickets and Stay Informed with New Waze Speed Limits Feature [Waze]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Contrary to what you may have believed your entire life, it turns out that the Hamburglar is not a character limited solely to pilfering beef patties from McDonald’s. How else might one explain how 33 cases of Burger King Whoppers went missing from the back of a truck recently?

Warren, MI police are investigating the crime, which happened while the driver of a semi-truck that was carrying the burgers ended up taking a nap on the job, the Detroit Free Press reports.

“It’s a whopper of a theft,” the city’s mayor, Jim Fouts, told the newspaper.

Here’s how the mystery of the disappearing Whoppers went down: on Thursday night, the driver tasked with transporting the Burger King products attempted to deliver several cases of burgers to the distribution center, but for some reason, he ended up having to wait several hours to complete the delivery.

He fell asleep in the truck and woke up at 2 a.m. to find that his truck’s shipping seal was busted and a few boxes of Whoppers were missing. So locked the truck with a padlock and went back to sleep, officials said. But when he woke up again at 8:30 a.m., at least one thief had struck his cargo, stealing 33 cases of burgers this time.

Police are now on the case of the hamburglars, though they need help with leads and are asking the public to pitch in — after all, “They probably consumed the evidence,” Fouts noted.

‘Hamburglar’ in Warren stole 33 cases of Whoppers [Detroit Free Press]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Late last year, Pepsi prepared to introduce a new beverage, the old-timey and upscale 1893, or as its trademark application called it, “1893 From the Makers of Pepsi-Cola.” It’s just one of many products taking advantage of a strange trend in soft drinks right now: making products with real sugar is a selling point, something that the industry might not have expected just a few years ago.

Wait…isn’t sugar bad for us? Why are health-conscious consumers turning to more calorific beverages? Even the CEO of PepsiCo, Indira Nooyi, seems to find current consumer preferences a little confusing.

“They are willing to go to organic non-GMO products even if it has high salt, high sugar, high fat,” she told investors on a conference call last year. Nooyi would have expected diet soft drink sales to go up as Americans became interested in “clean” eating,” not full-sugar drinks.

The appeal, though, is that sugar is something that we think of as natural, coming from a plant. There’s a reason why drinks labels take the trouble to say they’re made from cane sugar. Corn sugar High-fructose corn syrup originates in a plant, too, but isn’t something that we routinely cook with.

“The number one fixation on food companies’ minds is ‘clean label,'” a food market expert explained to the Wall Street Journal. Companies are trying to make products in factories in massive quantities, but with “natural ingredients and shorter ingredient lists that look like you made it at home.” Do you have a high-fructose corn syrup bowl sitting on your counter next to the coffee machine? Neither does anyone else.

Products that call themselves “natural,” a label that’s meaningless under current regulations, are popular right now, and attempts to market sweeteners like stevia as plant-derived aren’t taking off. As soft drink sales fall, then, companies want to sell us smaller containers of slightly more expensive sugar-water, at a higher profit.

Soft-Drink Makers Have New Secret Ingredient: Sugar! [Wall Street Journal]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

If you’ve been jonesing for a new kind of Gatorade, you’ll have a while longer to wait: after announcing last year that it was working on an organic version of Gatorade that it would unleash upon the masses in 2016, PepsiCo now says it’s pushing back the release date for that planned beverage to sometime in 2017.

“It’s in our road map to do Gatorade with less artificial [flavors], and we are developing a G organic that we are planning to launch next year, and then we plan to evaluate the rest of the portfolio to have better choices for athletes,” Xavi Cortadellas, Head of Innovation at Gatorade told TheStreet.

As for why it’s making a move to the organic side, Al Carey, the CEO of PepsiCo Americas Beverages, said last year that it’s what customers want.

“It’s a consumer interest,” Carey said then. “I think they’re very interested in non-GMO [genetically modified organisms] and organic, and to the degree you can make it meaningful to the consumer — do it.”

Of course, Pepsi isn’t alone on the organic bandwagon: companies like Papa John’s, Hershey’s, Panera, Campbell’s, Schwan, Subway, Aldi, Mondelez, and more all removed or have promised to stop using artificial flavors and additives in some of their products in response to consumer demand for less processed foods.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

The food fight between Pepperidge Farm and Trader Joe’s over Belgian chocolate sandwich cookies has been put to bed, after the two sides agreed to settle their issues out of court.

For those who don’t remember, Pepperidge Farm sued Trader Joe’s in federal court late last year, claiming that the latter’s Crispy Cookies filled with chocolate were way too close to the company’s Milano brand.

The lawsuit sought undisclosed damages and to block Trader Joe’s from selling its sandwich cookie in the future.

So does this mean shoppers will have access to both kinds of cookies? It’s unclear, but seems likely: a lawyer representing Pepperidge Farm told the Associated Press on Wednesday that the two food companies had reached a “mutually satisfactory resolution” and agreed to make no further comments about their fight.

A judge then dismissed the case once Pepperidge Farm filed notice that it was withdrawing its lawsuit.

We reached out to both companies for a statement, and will update this post if we hear back.

Trader Joe’s settles cookie lawsuit with Pepperidge Farm [Associated Press]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Federal law bars debt relief services from receiving upfront fees before they’ve even renegotiated a single debt for a customer. But one student loan debt relief operation allegedly took in nearly $3.6 million in illegal fees, only to enroll borrowers in programs that are already available for free.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced today that it has taken action against Student Aid Institute and CEO Steven Lamont for illegally demanding hundreds of dollars in upfront fees to help borrowers enroll in federal income-driven plans and misrepresenting that the company had an affiliation with the Department of Education.

According to the complaint [PDF], beginning in 2012 the company began to market, sell, and administer student-loan debt relief services to consumers through telemarketing calls and direct mail.

To entice borrowers to enroll in the program, telemarketers and mailings implied that the organization was endorsed, sponsored by, or affiliated with the Department of Education.

Additionally, employees of SAI told potential customers that they were “eligible to reduce your current payment of $595 to $63 which may save you $63,900 over the term of your student loan.” In reality, the CFPB says the company had no basis to make these claims.

The company typically charged consumers an upfront fee of $395 or $495 as well as a $39 per month maintenance fee once enrolled.

Immediately after consumers signed contracts with SAI, the company withdrew funds from the borrowers’ bank accounts and charged their credit cards for the illegal upfront fees.

Additionally, the Bureau claims that SAI failed to provide customers with privacy notices as required by law.

In all, the CFPB investigation found the alleged scam affected 4,300 borrowers, and collected $3.6 million in illegal fees.

Under the CFPB’s proposed order, SAI must shut down its relief operations, cancel all contracts with customers, and stop charging them.

The company and its operators are also barred from offering, or receiving any payments from, debt relief services, and pay a civil penalty of $50,000 to the Bureau’s Civil Penalty Fund.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Uber customers and drivers will no longer be able to reach the company by way of a support email address — a system many customers were frustrated with in the first place — as the company is switching to an in-app tool for troubleshooting and reporting issues.

Uber is phasing out the support@uber.com email address that drivers and passengers have used to report lost items, unruly customers and troublesome drivers, and other issues. Want to know your passenger rating? The app will provide that information instantly with the new feature.

The switchover will happen over the next three weeks, starting in the U.S. and moving globally after.

By moving customer supper rover to its app, Uber says response times will go down and customer satisfaction will go up. In fact, both are already true, Uber claims, adding that customer service has increased 10% since it began rolling out the feature.

“Ultimately, our goal is to create a product that’s so great you never need to contact customer service,” Uber says in the announcement. “In the meantime, we’re doubling down on our technology so that when you need to get in touch, it’s as quick and easy as getting a ride.”

Customers and drivers will be able to follow up on their issues using the app, or via email notifications if that’s still your preferred method.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Last May, an investigation involving federal regulators and prosecutors from all 50 states led to four national cancer charities being charged with swindling consumers out of $187 million in charitable donations. Today, two of those bogus charities — responsible for $75 million in bilked donations — have agreed to close up shop and provide refunds to donors.

The Federal Trade Commission, along with all 50 states and the District of Columbia, announced today that Cancer Fund of America (CFA), Cancer Support Services Inc. (CSS), and James Reynolds, Sr. — the man behind both groups — will settle  will settle charges that the organizations claimed to help cancer patients, but instead, spent the overwhelming majority of donations on their operators, families and friends, and fundraisers.

According to the original complaint [PDF], the two charities, along with the Children’s Cancer Fund of America Inc. (CCFOA) and The Breast Cancer Society Inc. (BCS), used telemarketing calls, websites, direct mail and materials distributed by the Combined Federal Campaign – which raises money from federal employees for non-profit organizations – to solicit donations from consumers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The complaint purports that the deceptive scheme was set in motion by James Reynolds Sr. in 1987 and since then has regularly duped consumers into believing they supported a genuine charity.

From 2008 to 2012, the organizations deceptively raised $187 million in donations by portraying themselves as legitimate charities and told prospective donors that funds would be used for help cancer patients by providing direct support and needed medical assistance.

“These were lies,” the complaint states. “Not one of the Defendants has operated a program that provides cancer patients with pain medication to alleviate their suffering, transports cancer patients to chemotherapy appointments, or pays for hospice care. Moreover, the vast majority of donors’ contributions have not directly assisted cancer patients in the United States or otherwise benefitted any charitable purpose.”

In reality, the FTC and state officials, claim the four charities spent just 3% of the donations on actual cancer patients.

The rest of the money was spent on inflated salaries, cars, trips, luxury cruises, college tuition, gym memberships, jet ski outings, sporting event and concert tickets, and dating site memberships for the company operators, their family members, and friends.

The charities “operated as personal fiefdoms characterized by rampant nepotism, flagrant conflicts of interest, and excessive insider compensation, with none of the financial and governance controls that any bona fide charity would have adopted,” according to the complaint.

The organizations were more generous with friends and family members, providing salaries nearly five times what they actually provided in aid to patients.

In addition to lining their own pockets, the charity operators allegedly padded the wallets of professional fundraisers who were hired and often received 85% or more of every donation.

To hide the high administrative and fundraising costs from donors and regulators, the complaint alleges the organizations falsely inflated their revenues by reporting in publicly filed financial documents more than $223 million donated “gifts in kind” distributed to international recipients.

Children’s Cancer Fund of America Inc. and The Breast Cancer Society Inc. agreed to settle with the FTC and states in May 2015.

According to the settlement order [PDF] with CFA and CSS, the charities will be dissolved and their assets will be liquidated. Any funds from the liquidation will go toward satisfying a $75 million judgement. Those funds will then be returned to the consumers who donated to the organizations between 2008 and 2012.

Reynolds’ portion of the judgement is suspended following the surrender of certain personal assets, including art, statues, a boat, and guns. In addition to contributing to consumer refunds, the order bans Reynolds from working for, managing, or receiving payments from non-profits in the future.

“The FTC and our state enforcement partners have ended a pernicious charity fraud that syphoned hundreds of millions of dollars away from well-meaning consumers, legitimate charities, and people with cancer who needed the services the defendants falsely promised,” Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement Wednesday. “Today’s settlement, along with those announced earlier, shut down the sham charities once and for all and banned the individual perpetrators for life.”

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

America’s female shoppers just aren’t as interested as they used to be in most of the stuff available in malls: spending on almost everything is down. There’s one area of retail that’s growing that you might not have expected, though: sales of high-end cosmetics are climbing, which include makeup and skin care. Why is that? Blame YouTube.

Specifically, YouTube beauty tutorials, which show amateurs who might not trust the advice of a commission-based salesperson how to apply certain products and create new looks.

Sure, online beauty personalities receive freebies or might be on makeup company payrolls too, but you can watch hours of videos without feeling directly pressured to buy anything.

A bigger focus on environmental chemicals and additives as a society is also turning some customers away from cheap makeup. “People are becoming more aware that what they put on their skin seeps into their skin,” one industry analyst told the Washington Post. “There’s definitely been a rise in demand for natural products.”

While Americans are spending more of our clothing budgets in outlet and off-price clothing stores, even more trends are dragging us in to stores to spend more on beauty and skin care. Major trends of the last few years like contouring, thick and dark eyebrows, and skincare routines imported from Korea are also drawing women to try new products.

Women are scrimping on clothes, but splurging on this [Washington Post]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

Facebook is continuing its efforts to transform Messenger from simply a chatting platform into a customer service portal with a foray into travel: the social media company announced a new partnership with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines that will let the carrier’s customers access their boarding pass and other flight information through the Messenger app.

Flyers on KLM will be able to pull up things like their boarding passes, itineraries and frequent flyer number, get check-in reminders and flight status updates, rebook flights, and contact customer support through a Messenger chat thread.

The feature will work everywhere Messenger and KLM are both accessible.

“This is one that I’ve been personally eager to solve for a while,” Facebook’s head of Messenger, David Marcus, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. “Removing stress, and complication from air travel. I’m excited to announce that our first airline partner on Messenger will start rolling out their presence today.”

It’s likely that other airlines will also sign up for the integration as well. They’ll join other Facebook business partners like Uber, Lyft, and online clothing retailers Everlane and Zulilly.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

We don’t know why anyone would want to be like Comcast, but AT&T sure seems to be doing its best to dress itself up just like the chaps from Kabletown. They both hate community broadband and will lobby to shut it down when it competes with their services, and they both only offer competitive pricing when Google Fiber is in the mix. Now AT&T is following Comcast’s lead on data caps, by generously offering to let customers pay more to avoid running into those monthly limits.

Yesterday, AT&T announced some news for its U-Verse subscribers. Starting May 23, most U-verse Internet users will see higher monthly limits, with the slowest tier now having access to 300GB of data a month and the fastest levels of service getting up to a terabyte of data:

If you’re using U-Verse for Internet but getting AT&T-owned DirecTV satellite TV service, there will be no monthly data cap. Of course, it’s no coincidence that AT&T is exempting DirecTV customers just as the company prepares to roll out a streaming version of the pay-TV service. This means that U-Verse customers won’t have to worry about falling asleep streaming a marathon of House Hunters and ending up with an overage charge.

But the real kicker is the Comcast-esque “unlimited” offering that AT&T is making so generously available. For just $30/month — on top of all the other stuff on your bill — you won’t have to worry about possibly running up against the data cap.

Comcast pioneered this fee — which it admits has absolutely nothing to do with network congestion — back in September, when it began expanding the data cap “test” it has been meddling with for several years.

Thousands of Comcast customers have already complained to the FCC about these data caps. Among the various gripes filed with the regulators are numerous instances of customers claiming that Comcast’s online metering tool — which is supposed to indicate how much data a customer has used in a billing cycle — was inoperative or inaccurate.

Under the new U-Verse plan, going over the monthly allotment will result in charges of $10 for every 50GB of data you use over your cap, meaning you’d need to use more than an additional 150GB of data each month to justify spending the extra $30/month on AT&T’s unlimited plan. By the company’s math, that’s another 50 hours of HD streaming.

The company says that it will use a system of warnings and alerts to let them know when they are using too much data.

The first time you hit 100% of your data allowance, you’ll get an email but no charges will be tacked onto your account.

The second time, you’ll get emails when you’ve reached 65%, 90%, and 100% of your limit but still won’t be charged.

After that, you’ll get the reminder emails at 65% and 90% of your allotment, but if you hit 100%, you’ll be charged $10 for each 50GB of data you go over the maximum. Customers who enter into that cap-breaking space will receive additional reminders when they are at 75% and 100% of their add-on 50GB allotment. AT&T says it won’t charge more than $100 in a month for overage fees.

AT&T has a dubious history with the term “unlimited.” The company created unlimited wireless data plans to sell iPhones back in 2007 and 2008, only to later yank the plans from its offerings — and drive grandfathered unlimited customers onto tiered plans by throttling their data — after Verizon and others were able to sell the popular Apple phone. AT&T recently resurrected the idea, but only to sell its wireless service as a bundle with either U-Verse or DirecTV service.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

If you’ve been wishing for longer videos of cute cats, dogs, and kids saying the darndest things on Instagram, the social media gods have heard your prayers. Instagram users will now be able to post videos that are up to one minute long, adding 45 seconds to the previous video length limits.

Before this update, users could only post videos up to 15 seconds in length, which is awfully short when there’s an adorable cockatoo screeching funny things, or a dog and a raccoon engaging in some solid interspecies snuggling.

“In the last six months, the time people spent watching video increased by more than 40 percent,” the company said in its announcement, adding that “longer videos mean more diverse stories” from popular accounts.

The company says the update started rolling out on Tuesday, and will be available “for everyone in the coming months.”

Instagram is also bringing back the ability to make videos out of multiple clips from your camera roll — if you’re an iOS user.

This move to longer videos is interesting, in that it takes Instagram a step closer to YouTube, and a step away from apps like Snapchat, which limits users to videos that last a matter of seconds. Perhaps Instagram is just trying to carve out its own little spot in the crowded world of mobile video.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

With the massive Takata airbag recall seemingly growing by millions of vehicles and inflators every few weeks, the Japanese auto parts maker is looking to the future of its wallet, determining that if a comprehensive recall of the company’s inflators eventually occurs it will spend roughly $24 billion. 

Bloomberg, citing a person close to the matter, reports that a worst-case scenario involving the recall of all Takata airbags containing the volatile chemical explosive ammonium nitrate — one of the root causes for the violent ruptures that have killed nine people in the U.S. and 10 in the world — would total more than 287.5 million inflators.

A spokesperson for Takata declined to comment on the possibility of an all-encompassing recall of airbags, saying the company doesn’t disclose production figures for specific products.

The $24 billion cost estimate, which is more than the company’s total assets in 2015, far exceeds a previous projection by Jefferies Group analysts of $7 billion, Bloomberg reports.

Of course, Takata’s share of the $24 billion could be lowered, depending on how the auto parts maker and carmakers determine to split the costs of repairs and replacement parts.

“Even if this is the worst-case simulation, it shows the company has seen some possibility,” Ken Miyao, an analyst with Tokyo-based market researcher Carnorama, tells Bloomberg. “The question is how much the carmakers want to split the costs. But even if Takata only bears half of the cost, this would still be beyond their scope.”

So far, Takaki Nakanishi, an analysts with Jefferies, estimates that Takata has spent $5.4 billion on the recall and that future recalls could total $80 per unit, Bloomberg reports.

“It is not difficult to imagine how hard it will be for Takata to rebuild its financial standing if the expenses are apportioned,” Nakanishi wrote. “The Japanese automotive industry cannot avoid seriously adopting an exit strategy from the Takata issue.”

Takata Puts Worst-Case Airbag Recall Costs at $24 Billion [Bloomberg]

by prakash chandra via Consumerist

जनता का आदमी

The high-profile legal standoff between Apple and the FBI recently came to an end when the government unlocked a terrorist’s iPhone without Apple’s assistance, but new data confirms that this single showdown is just one of dozens of cases where the federal government has successfully used a more than 225-year-old law to compel Apple or Google to aid authorities in bypassing smartphone security measures.

At the center of the recently concluded Apple vs. FBI dispute is the All Writs Act, which allows a judge to compel a person or group to assist in the enforcement of a court order — but only if that assistance is both necessary and “agreeable to the usages and principles of law.”

In February, the federal government successfully sought a court order under the All Writs Act, compelling Apple to aid the FBI in unlocking an iPhone that had belonged to Syed Farook, one of the shooters who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, CA, on Dec. 2, 2015.

Apple fought back against the court order, arguing that this use of the All Writs Act was unprecedented, and the government’s request was not “about one isolated iPhone,” but instead a case of “the Department of Justice and the FBI seeking through the courts a dangerous power that Congress and the American people have withheld: the ability to force companies like Apple to undermine the basic security and privacy interests of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe.”

However, in another Apple-related case in a New York federal court (one in which the judge sided with Apple), the DOJ told the court that it had previously used the All Writs Act dozens of times to compel Apple’s assistance and that the company had not balked.

This assertion led the American Civil Liberties Union to root around to see just how widespread the government’s use of the All Writs Act had been in recent years.

According to data released today by the ACLU, the group turned up court documents for 63 cases — plus at least another 13 without docket numbers — in 22 states since 2008 where the government applied for a court order under the Act to compel the assistance of either Apple or Google.

Most of the court orders involve either password resets or lock-screen bypasses, and many of them occurred before Apple and Google updated their operating systems in 2014 to remove previously existing backdoors.

Even those court orders coming after the security upgrades seem to involve phones seized before those changes went into place. For example, in 2015 the Department of Homeland Security sought a court order for Google’s assistance in resetting the password for a Samsung smartphone belonging to a man arrested on child pornography charges. However, that phone had been seized in 2012, long before Google made it more difficult to assist in unlocking devices.

Similarly, a 2015 court order obtained by the FBI is for an Android device seized in a drug-related case a year earlier.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, a rep for Google acknowledges that the company has obliged court orders, but that it has “never received an All Writs Act order like the one Apple recently fought that demands we build new tools that actively compromise our products’ security.”

If Google were to receive this sort of demand — compelling the company to weaken the security of the operating system it creates — the rep says, “We would strongly object to such an order.”

FBI’s success in getting through iPhone security without Apple’s assistance is only going to make Apple, Google, and others tighten their privacy measures further, both to prevent any third parties from using the FBI’s work-around and to ensure security-minded customers that their data is protected.

The iPhone maker is reportedly already working on a device that would prevent the company from pushing software updates to locked iPhones, meaning Apple would not be able to help law enforcement by replacing a secure operating system with a less-secure version.

by prakash chandra via Consumerist