Check out this thought-provoking piece of reporting from NPR about where an undergraduate student's tuition dollars go and the debate over what should be included in calculating the cost of a student's education. Depending on who's answering that question, one can view tuition as terribly inflated or — if you count financial aid subsidies and […]
Author Archives: Scott Michelman
Within a matter of days, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans for a broad network of license plate readers to collect information on Americans' movements nationwide, and then scrapped it. So it appears that on the right issues, at the right moments, privacy advocates and the people they represent have some pull. Wish this […]
by Andrew D. Selbst, guest blogger A month ago, I wrote about Verizon v. FCC, the D.C. Circuit decision striking down the FCC’s net neutrality regulations. In that post, I noted that the decision contained two distinct holdings. First, the FCC could not impose common carrier regulations (net neutrality is one such regulation) on broadband […]
James Surowiecki, The New Yorker’s financial writer, has this interesting analysis this week about how corporate brands are less valuable than they once were – thanks to the proliferation of consumer information.
We don’t often have occasion to praise debt collectors on this site, so it’s worth taking note when a debt collection company does the right thing. As many of you will remember from previous posts (see here and here), an online retailer called KlearGear tried to extort $3500 from its customer John Palmer because his […]
We've discussed before the case against Facebook's Sponsored Stories program, which resulted in a settlement to which Public Citizen objected on behalf of a group of parents from around the country. See here for a description of our objections and the settlement. Chief among the settlement's flaws is that it allows Facebook to continue to […]
"Welcome to the new-and-not-so-improved world of payday lending, which has adopted more sophisticated sales pitches and branding to lure unwary consumers into loans that can trap them in endless cycles of debt," writes the Times. So what's the alternative? The U.S. post office has an idea: "Have post offices partner with banks to offer basic […]
More than one third of the states have removed criminal penalties for the use of medical marijuana, which be can a uniquely effective treatment for a number of serious medical conditions. (For one powerful example, see this story about a cancer patient who is a former client of mine.) Of course, because of the federal […]
Back in the Supreme Court's 2011 Term, a case that got a fair bit of attention was First American v. Edwards, which raised the question whether a plaintiff whose only injury was the violation of a congressionally-created right had standing to sue in federal court. The Court dismissed the case as improvidently granted (i.e., without […]