From the NYT: The recall of exploding Takata airbags, one of the largest and most complex auto recalls in the nation’s history, may grow even larger. On Thursday, officials from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the top federal auto safety regulator, said it had expanded its investigation of the defect beyond the airbags situated […]
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The Federal Communications Commission has fined six companies a combined $30 million for deceptively marketing prepaid calling cards. The FCC found that the companies falsely advertised that their low-cost prepaid calling cards could allow consumers far more calling minutes than were in fact being sold. The FCC press release explains that "[t]he companies targeted advertising […]
In two cases today (one of them litigated by Public Citizen), the Fourth Circuit held that the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) is not entitled to claim Pennsylvania's sovereign immunity because PHEAA is not an arm of the state. In fact, PHEAA is effectively an independent business, which holds, services or guarantees more than $100 billion […]
by Paul Alan Levy Earlier this year, I discussed a troubling decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that reinstated a complaint by Multi-Time Machine, a maker of fancy watches, based on the way in which Amazon’s internal search engine returned results when users entered the search string “mtm special […]
That's the name of this article by Kevin Drum. Here's an excerpt: In 2010, just after Obamacare passed, CBO estimated that the uninsured rate would hit 8 percent by 2016. This was based on the original law, but in 2012 the Supreme Court made Medicaid expansion voluntary and most red states opted out. In July CBO updated its projections to […]
by Paul Alan Levy Yesterday I discussed a lawsuit filed by Amazon seeking relief against over a thousand anonymous individuals who offered to sell their services posting phony positive reviews about products available for sale on Amazon. The theory of Amazon's complaint is that the users are all registered Amazon users and hence forbidden from […]
As regulators and policymakers consider how to respond to VW's emissions scandal — in which the company programmed its vehicles to emit less during tests than under normal conditions (for our prior discussions, see here, here, and here) — one angle they might consider for future reform is copyright. Sen. Ron Wyden opined last week […]
In wake of last week's announcement by New York restaurateur Danny Meyer that he would be eliminating tipping at his restaurants (and instead building a service charge into the menu prices), dueling op-eds in the Times and Post over the past week debate the merits of tipping as a custom and means of paying workers. In the Times, Saru […]
by Paul Alan Levy The problem of false reviews bedevils web sites that invite customer reviews as a basis for other consumers to judge goods and services available to them on the market. Disgruntled merchants can be counted on bring defamation claims against false negative reviewers, but few merchants feel they have any incentive to […]
… reports fivethirtyeight.com. For instance: During the strong labor market of the mid-1990s, only 1 in 5 minimum-wage workers was still earning minimum wage a year later. Today, that number is nearly 1 in 3, according to my analysis of government survey data. There has been a similar rise in the number of people staying […]