…in last Wednesday's Times, notes that, "Last month Congress quietly approved a way for computerized callers to tap into the cell phones used by millions of people who owe money on government backed loans." Read more here.
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Since I published yesterday’s discussion of the Montana Standard’s retroactive elimination of anonymous commenting on its web site, there have been three informative developments. First, I was able to speak with the Standard’s editor, David McCumber, mostly off the record so that we could talk through some of the issues in a collegial mannner; second, […]
The ABA Journal reports that “The Georgia Secretary of State’s office accidentally sent protected personal information for its states’ registered voters on computer disks to third parties last month, along with the public voter-registration records for which those organizations had paid.” Last week, plaintiffs brought a class action suit under state identity-protection law on behalf […]
by Paul Alan Levy Over at Internet Daily’s Policy Blog, Wendy Davis brings us news that the Montana Standard, the daily paper in Butte Montana, is retroactively changing its policy for the posting of online comments to stories on its web site. The current policy, which will apparently continue in effect until January 1, allows […]
In 2014, the U.S. Department of Education adopted the “gainful employment” rule to address overwhelming evidence that some postsecondary career training programs, particularly at for-profit institutions, were failing to prepare students for jobs that would enable them to repay their federal student debt, thus endangering the federal government’s investment in these schools by way of […]
Overall, the program has been working well, the Nobel laureate chronicles: -The uninsured rate has dropped sharply -Most employers are not (as previously feared) dropping coverage for employees -Costs are lower than expected And Krugman puts some recent bad news (about rising premiums, for instance) into perspective. Read Krugman's op-ed here.
The Wall Street Journal reports on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's consideration of a rule requiring lenders to provide detailed data on loan applications, in an effort to prevent discrimination against small businesses and businesses owned by women and minorities. "To do that, the agency would require lenders to provide detailed data on loan applications, […]
Politico reports: The FCC has announced a series of eye-popping fines against companies over the past two years: Roughly $100 million against nearly a dozen firms for defrauding a phone subsidy program, $35 million against a Chinese company for selling illegal wireless jamming equipment, and $100 million against AT&T this June for throttling customers on […]
With so many avenues to challenge the use of forced arbitration clauses in consumer contracts closed off by Supreme Court precedent, plaintiffs tried another one: allege that so many credit card companies' parallel adoption of the clauses was collusive and therefore violated antitrust law. But the district court dismissed the challenge and yesterday the Second […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today posted its current rulemaking agenda. Its "current initiatives" address arbitration; payday, auto title, and similar lending products; pre-paid accounts; overdraft; debt collection; larger participants and non-depository lender registration; Women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses data collection; mortgage servicing; and implementation of various mortgage rules. The CFPB announcement has a summary. […]