buying blind
Let's get straight to the bad news: although Amazon did answer my questions, their answers included "we're working on that," "I don't know," and "I don't know (but it's the publishers' fault)." To be fair to the "
Kindle Specialist" I spoke with this morning, he has promised to talk to the Kindle marketing department—why marketing? these are DRM issues!—and get back to me with better answers. Until then, this is what the average consumer can expect from a Kindle ebook license.
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fines
The
Department of Transportation smacked
Delta with a $375,000 fine for ignoring federal laws that require airlines to offer bumped passengers adequate compensation and an explanation of their rights. Inside, a listing of your options if an airline tries to bump you off their flight...
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comcast
Comcast-subscribing NFL fans did the Ickey Shuffle
back in May when the
NFL Network and Comcast revealed that they'd made nice and the channel would made available to Comcasters on the "Digital Classic" package for no additional charge Aug. 1.
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harassment
Back in March, Steve Bierfeldt was pulled aside while going through the security line at Lambert-St. Louis (Missouri) International Airport, taken to a room, and
questioned for half an hour about the box of cash he was trying to check through. Bierfeldt, who works for a
Ron Paul organization, recorded the conversation. Now with the help of the ACLU he's suing the
TSA.
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tos
It's difficult enough to parse a lengthy TOS for one web-based service, let alone for dozens, or to keep track of when and how they update them. It would be nice if some public-service website out there would keep track of this stuff for all of us, wouldn't it? Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) did just that with the launch of
TOSBAck.org, "the terms-of-service tracker." It tracks TOS agreements for 44 different services, including Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, Twitter, and eBay.
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nfl
Last week's
word that
Comcast and the NFL finally put their blood feud behind them to make the elusive NFL Network available on the basic digital tier was nice and all, but the out-of-nowhere bonus that the Comcast would also snag
Red Zone Channel, which lets you keep tabs on all the games simultaneously, was a phenomenal revelation.
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nfl
It's official, the NFL Network and
Comcast have finally reached an agreement that will bring the football-only network to the majority of Comcast's subscribers. So, who caved?
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lawsuits
Monster Cable loves to sue companies that use "Monster" in their names, even if they don't sell cables and even if they've been around as long as Monster Cable has.
Jones Day is a law firm that doesn't want anyone else to use standard, everyday formatting for links in news stories about its staff, and it
succeeded in forcing a small start-up to cave in to its demands.
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facebook
If you've been following the Facebook story over the past couple of days, you know by now that Facebook has said that
they are not claiming ownership of uploaded user content: "We certainly did not—and did not intend—to create any new right or interest for Facebook in users' data by issuing the new Terms." But blogger Amanda French decided to actually
compare the fine print for several social networking sites—MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Picasa—and she concludes that "Facebook's claims to your content are extraordinarily grabby and arrogant." Read her side-by-side comparison here.
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responses
Well, yesterday's
Facebook post certainly blew up today, and it looks like
Facebook is currently
preparing an official response. In the meantime, a Facebook rep has written to the Industry Standard to emphasize that all rights are
subject to your privacy settings, so even if they don't expire when you close your account, they'll still be subject to whatever restrictions you had when the account was active. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has also posted a more philosophical response on the Facebook blog saying that while the new
Terms of Service are "overly formal," they're only meant to give Facebook the legal ability to
enable content sharing among users.
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lawsuits
Consumerist empowers consumers to take on bad companies, but sometimes even the negative PR that Consumerist can bring to bear is not enough to persuade companies to behave. When that happens, you might have to sue in order to get what you want. Here is a brief guide to your options when you decide you need to escalate your complaint to the courts.
discover
When John signed up for a Discover card a few months ago, he noticed an interesting item in the fine print—he could opt out of
binding arbitration if he sent in a written request that contained a few lines of necessary info and his signature. John followed the instructions, but Discover rejected it. Since then they've rejected his request a second time, failed to call him back when promised, and transferred him to CSRs who don't know what the word means. The latest news: now that 30 days have passed, he's no longer eligible to opt out. John's thinking about canceling the card.
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jetblue
Marilyn Parver is taking her story to the media after JetBlue had her arrested and walked off the plane in handcuffs for refusing to delete a video recording she made of an altercation between passengers. She told
Christopher Elliott that JetBlue accused her of interfering with a flight crew (a federal crime) and threatened to blacklist her by adding her name to the dreaded "no-fly list."
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