Definitely read this op-ed in the L.A. Times by Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice. Perfectly encapsulates the myriad problems with forced arbitration, and includes this pithy metaphor: Imagine the Dodgers have just won the pennant and are going to play the Yankees in the World Series. But the rules have changed: All games […]
Author Archives: Scott Michelman
In May, we told you about a privacy case against Facebook that was settled without much benefit to the class. The case involved Facebook’s practice (called “Sponsored Stories”) of featuring the names and images of its users in advertising without the users’ consent. As alleged in the complaint, when a user interacts with a company […]
We've written before about Facebook's "Sponsored Stories" program that repackages its users' interactions with companies as ads for those companies. (Public Citizen objected when the case was settled without much benefit to the class.) Now Facebook is apparently retiring the "Sponsored Stories" name but not the general idea. According to Facebook's blog post last week, […]
Paul has often posted on (and is one of the leading experts on) protecting consumers' anonymity in speaking online. (A good example is the Hadeed case, which you can read more about here.) But cyberspace offers opportunities for companies to hide also, and it can be a barrier to holding them accountable for wrongdoing. For […]
In September, a group of auto safety advocates and parents represented by Public Citizen sued the Department of Transportation over its failure to issue a congressionally-mandated regulation to address the problem of backover crashes, that is, collisions in which a vehicle moving backwards strikes a person (or object) behind the vehicle. Each year on average, […]
You may recall the story of John Palmer of Utah, from whom online retailer KlearGear.com demanded $3500 after John’s wife Jen posted an online review discussing the couple's bad experience with KlearGear’s customer service. When John refused to pay the outrageous demand, KlearGear reported the $3500 alleged “debt” to the credit reporting agencies and wrecked […]
This front-page Washington Post investigative report, well worth a read, documents the troubling effect of election-year politics on important regulatory actions. The lede summarizes: The White House systematically delayed enacting a series of rules on the environment, worker safety and health care to prevent them from becoming points of contention before the 2012 election, according […]
Check out this excellent and gutwrenching Post story, which explains more clearly than most sequester reporting how — and why — the sequester affected different federal programs differently, and tells the story of how four-year-old Kentuckian Carli Hopkins got kicked out of preschool by a federal budget plan adopted because of inertia and accident.
A fascinating piece, particularly for those of us who didn't live through the struggle to pass the Fair Housing Act. As the website explains: "Where you live is important. It can dictate quality of schools and hospitals, as well as things like cancer rates, unemployment, or whether the city repairs roads in your neighborhood. On […]
Here is a helpful (and entertainingly written) catalogue of various nasty consumer practices to watch out for, along with some basic advice about protecting yourself as a consumer (to the extent you can). Courtesy of the Consumer Law Center of Neighborhood Legal Services of Greater Cleveland. (HT: Mark Wiseman.)