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 […]
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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 […]
Yes, very good, with the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives, says reporter Joe Nocera in this NY Times op-ed.
Today's LA Times has another story on the Fiat-Chrysler stratagem of offering customers a "friends and family" discount in return for which consumers sign away their right to sue the automaker by agreeing to arbitration. (We had a short blog entry on the subject last week.) The story points out that most consumers can get […]
…is the question raised by a New York Times expose this week. The Times reports that the U.S. Department of Education, despite a crackdown against what it calls “bad actors,” continues to hand over tens of millions of dollars every month to other for-profit schools that have been accused of predatory behavior, substandard practices or illegal […]