The Hill reports: Roughly 58.5 billion robocalls were made in the U.S. last year, according to new research, marking a 22 percent increase from 2018. YouMail, a company that provides a service to block robocalls, estimated that the average American received 178.3 robocalls during the year. The full story is here.
A report released Tuesday by the Norwegian Consumer Council, a government-funded nonprofit organization in Oslo, describes how apps on our phones systematically violate users’ privacy collecting and sharing information with third-party advertisers without users’ knowledge or consent. The report "demonstrate[s] how every time we use our phones, a large number of shadowy entities that are […]
The Center for Justice & Democracy at New York Law School has released a report examining both safety risks and disappearing legal rights for commuters and business travelers. The study presents an overview of some of the most common yet dangerous methods of transportation today and explores the shrinking legal options available to individuals harmed […]
Here. Excerpt: Community groups across the U.S. are mobilizing to oppose a plan by President Donald Trump's bank regulators to radically remake a landmark law designed to combat discriminatory lending, saying the proposal would undercut that goal. * * * The groups say the proposed regulation, which Otting released jointly with the FDIC on Dec. […]
Here. Free content. In light of the election and the divided Congress, it seems unlikely that anything controversial will pass.
David Dayen has the story in The American Prospect. Here's an excerpt, but the entire story is worth a look: It may seem axiomatic, but it’s rarely stated out loud: Businesses that rely on poor people need the economic system to keep churning out poor people to survive. You almost have to applaud the payday […]
Here, in The Conversation, by Anthony Dukes, Professor of Marketing, University of Southern California and Yi Zhu, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Minnesota. Excerpt: Many complaint processes are actually designed to help companies retain profits by limiting the number of customers who can successfully resolve their complaints. Only by insisting to talk to a manager or […]
An investigation by Senator Cantwell's oversight staff found that a "series of high-profile failures to effectively recall dangerous products has called into question the ability of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to adequately protect American consumers from unsafe and defective products. An extensive review by U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation […]
The Washington Post today reports on the expected effect of California's consumer privacy law, which was enacted in June 2018 and takes effect on January 1, 2020. The law aims to protect consumers from having their information sold without their knowledge or consent. The article — Calif consumer privacy law can affect businesses across U.S. […]
The New York Times has a lengthy piece today on location tracking through smartphones. Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and storing the information in gigantic data files. The Times […]