by Andrew Selbst, guest blogger A few weeks ago, the FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed a new “net neutrality” plan which is clearly anything but. While the new proposal would prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from blocking competitors’ websites outright, it would also permit ISPs to make agreements with services such as Netflix for internet […]
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From DOT's press announcement: The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) today announced that General Motors (GM) has agreed to pay a record $35 million civil penalty and to take part in unprecedented oversight requirements as a result of findings from NHTSA’s timeliness investigation regarding the Chevrolet Cobalt and the automaker’s […]
by Paul Alan Levy In mid-2009, Jennifer Choi posted a scathing Yelp review of a Phoenix repair shop called ToyoMotors, contending that her car was diagnosed as needing repairs that other shops assured her were unnecessary, and that its fees were excessive by comparison with its competitors. Four years later, ToyoMotors went on the offensive. […]
As we've discussed before on the blog (see, for instance, here and here), in 2012 an online retailer called KlearGear tried to extort $3500 from its customer John Palmer because his wife Jen criticized the company online; when John refused to pay, KlearGear reported the supposed “debt” to the credit agencies, ruining John’s credit for […]
We've written before about the FCC's most recent (and troubling) proposal for net neutrality. Now comes this letter to FCC Chair Tom Wheeler, signed by the four top House Republicans, opposing any attempt to reclassify the internet in such a way as to promote net neutrality. Doing so, the letter argues, "threatens to slow job creation […]
The Pew Research Center has just issued a report called Young Adults, Student Debt and Economic Well-Being. Among other things, it finds that Student debt burdens are weighing on the economic fortunes of younger Americans, as households headed by young adults owing student debt lag far behind their peers in terms of wealth accumulation, according […]
That's what law professor Michael Selmi is talking about in his new article, The Obama Administration's Civil Rights Record: The Difference an Administration Makes. Here is the abstract: This essay reviews the Obama Administration’s civil rights record during its first Administration, with a particular focus on the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice […]
by Paul Alan Levy In a decision issued today, the California Second District Court of Appeal has created an additional way for anonymous speakers, and for web operators who host anonymous comments, to protect the right to speak anonymously. Instead of invoking the First Amendment as courts in other states, and indeed other appellate courts […]
by Paul Alan Levy Popehat carried a story yesterday about a demand letter from a "senior attorney" for the US Department of Health and Human Services named Dale Berkeley (who pompously signed himself as "Ph.D. / J.D."), complaining about two lame parodies on a web site that opposes Alcoholic Anonymous and asserts that there is […]
Note: This item is reposted from yesterday. I screwed up the link to Adam Levitin's essay in the original link. The link has now been repaired, and I want to make sure that our readers have a chance to read the essay. "Mandatory Arbitration Offers Bargain-Basement Justice." That's the name of this thoughtul essay by […]