The New York Times reports: Equifax warehouses the most intimate details of Americans’ financial lives, from the credit cards in their wallets to the size of their medical bills. But the company doesn’t face the constant monitoring and auditing that help strengthen banks’ systems and data protections. Despite the wealth of sensitive information in its […]
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
Center for Science in the Public Interest's longtime president, Mike Jacobson, is stepping down next week. NPR reports: "Michael Jacobson invented a new style of food activism. For four decades, he led the fight against 'junk food.'" Read NPR's full story, which includes some interesting history about CSPI, here.
The House yesterday passed a bipartisan bill, called the “Self Drive Act,” addressing driverless cars. Among other things, the bill would allow car companies to introduce as many as 100,000 such vehicles a year — exempted from safety standards while the technology is developing. At the same time, the bill would bar states from implementing […]
The House of Representatives Financial Services subcommittee is holding a hearing this morning on HR 2359, entitled the "FCRA Liability Harmonization Act," which would reduce consumer remedies for credit reporting abuses. It would impose a $500,000 cap on damages in class actions brought under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and eliminate punitive damages in individual […]
Politico reports that, seven months into the Trump administration, Department of Education Secretary DeVos has: — Moved to gut two major Obama-era regulations reviled by the industry that would have cut off funding to low-performing programs and made it easier for defrauded students to wipe out their loans; — Appointed a former for-profit college official, […]
Wells Fargo now says it has found a total of up to 3.5 million potentially fake bank and credit card accounts, up from its earlier tally of approximately 2.1 million. The additional fake accounts were discovered by a previously-announced analysis that went back to January 2009 and that reviewed the original May 2011 to mid-2015 […]
A Washington Post column reminds us: "Today marks your final opportunity to submit comments to federal regulators who want to undo the government's net neutrality rules for Internet providers, in a move that could have sweeping implications for the future of the Web. The push to weaken or eliminate the rules has been met with praise from […]
Beachbody, one of the world’s largest sellers of exercise videos, supplements, and weight-loss programs, has agreed to change its website and sales practices to better protect consumers. The Santa Monica-based company, which claims over 23 million customers, also will pay $3.6 million in penalties and restitution as part of a final court judgment. The judgment […]
Professor Rebecca Tushnet on her 43(B)log has an interesting and thorough discussion today of a recent court decision in a false advertising case, Korolshteyn v. Costco Wholesale Corp. (S.D. Cal. Aug. 23, 2017): Costco’s TruNature Gingko labels represent that the product “supports alertness & memory,” that “Gingko biloba can help with mental clarity and memory,” […]
The president of KidsandCars.org, Janette Fennell, explains: "Under the guise of 'reform,' a bill called the Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA) would add a maze of additional bureaucracy to the life-saving protections. Instead of making it easier to implement protections, the RAA is a recipe for more red tape and additional layers of bureaucracy in a […]