by Brian Wolfman One of the nice things about the Internet is that it brings down the cost of communicating with the public, potentially democratizing free speech. At fairly low cost, consumers can establish websites that criticize big businesses. Sometimes those big businesses don't like that and sue the owners of the critical websites. Often […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
As explained here, the Environmental Protection Agency has banned BP from future federal contracts in light of the company's "lack of business integrity" evidenced by its misconduct surrounding the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The ban is temporary and will be lifted when BP, according to the EPA, "can provide sufficient evidence […]
This article by Richard Chen provides a bunch of tips about how to protect your privacy on the Internet. Among other things, he suggests forgoing Google for DuckDuckGo, which claims that it doesn't send information about you to other sites (as Google does) and doesn't collect personal information about you (as Google does) — for […]
Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court in D.C. has issued this this major opinion imposing corrective remedies in the federal government's 13-year-old RICO suit against the tobacco industry. Judge Kessler has issued a separate order mandating that the tobacco companies publish "corrective statements" on five topics "on which the Court found they had […]
by Brian Wolfman Thousands of our readers follow the CL&P Blog by receiving a daily email with the full text of each post. That function has been "down" since around November 20. Thanks to the excellent technological sleuthing of CL&P contributor and computer geek Greg Beck, the problem has been fixed! Today, those of you […]
In case you missed it, last week the Washington Post had this interesting article describing a meeting between President Obama and seven of the world's most prominent economists. The meeting took place over 13 months ago. Nearly all of the economists told the President that the government hadn't done enough to effectively forgive the mortgage […]
The Supreme Court handed down a unanimous per curiam decision this morning in Nitro-Lift Technologies v. Eddie Lee Howard. The Court ruled that an Oklahama Supreme Court's decision nixing contract provisions was a decision for an arbitrator (not the Oklahoma courts): State courts rather than federal courts are most frequently called upon to apply the […]
As you begin the online holiday shopping orgy, ask yourself whether Google is manipulating your search for the product of your dreams and driving you to places that it wants you to go (and away from other things that might interest you).That's the topic of this article by Grace Nasri. Here's an excerpt: In a […]
We have reported here and here about the high level of errors in credit reports. The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives consumers the right to have erroneous credit reports corrected. But the consumer needs to prove the error to the credit reporting agency. This article by Kelly Dilworth describes "10 surefire steps" to get errors […]
Nearly a year and a half ago, we covered the topic of drug industry influence on medical journals and research. The lead story in yesterday's Washington Post treats the topic in detail, noting that even the most prestigious medical journals have trouble avoiding bias in favor of the industry. The Post piece focuses on a […]