Judging by new FCC Chair Tom Wheeler’s vision of net neutrality, one might think the commission has no understanding of the very concept it is claiming to try to enforce. But that wasn’t so only a few years ago, when the FCC laid out a version of neutrality that is very, very different from the snake oil Wheeler is attempting to sell as a cure-all tonic. [More]
Government Policy
California Lawmakers Pull Plug On Smartphone “Kill Switch” Law
By 4.25.14
With nearly 3 million phones vanishing — often into the hands of sticky-finger thieves — each year, there has been a recent push to introduce legislation that would require wireless providers to include a “kill switch” functionality in all devices, allowing phone owners to remotely deactivate their devices until, and only if, they are located. But one such bill in California has been thwarted, and supporters are blaming the wireless industry. [More]
GM Confirms It’s Being Probed On Multiple Fronts Over Ignition Recall
By 4.24.14
While there have been numerous reports of agencies poking their noses into General Motors’ long-delayed ignition-related recall tied to at least 13 deaths, today the car maker game some indication of just how many investigations it faces. [More]
Fitbit Sends Out Recall Notification That Resembles A Phishing Notice
By 4.24.14
When the Fitbit Force was recalled back in March, it looked like it should have been the easiest recall in history. Once a customer removes the Bluetooth-enabled fitness-tracking wristbands from the packaging and syncs the device to a computer or smartphone, the company has the customer’s contact information and can easily drop them an e-mail. Six weeks later, that’s what the company has done…but many customers didn’t get the notice, as we learned yesterday. Why? [More]
FCC Chairman Insults Consumers’ Intelligence With Attempt To Defend Flimsy Net Neutrality
By 4.24.14
Today, FCC Chair Tom Wheeler is walking around to the offices of his fellow commissioners and passing out freshly mimeographed copies of his proposal for new net neutrality rules. He’s also typed up, presumably on a trusty Imperial A, a defense of his baffling decision to disregard the whole “neutrality” aspect of net neutrality by allowing deep-pocket content companies to pay for “fast lane” access. [More]
Proposed Regulations On E-Cigarettes Include Health Warning Label, Age Restrictions
By 4.24.14
It only took five years, but the Food and Drug Administration is ready to begin regulating electronic cigarettes. While the new rule covers a lot of ground with the never-before regulated devices, it doesn’t deal with some of critics’ more controversial concerns. [More]
FCC Makes Mockery Of Net Neutrality With Proposal To Allow Internet “Fast Lanes”
By 4.23.14
Recently installed FCC Chair Tom Wheeler apparently has no interest in actual net neutrality, as the new rules he’s proposing this week allow for Internet service providers to create so-called “fast lanes” for content companies willing to pay extra to more reliably deliver their data to the end-user. [More]
FCC Chair Almost Ready To Share His New Take On Net Neutrality
By 4.23.14
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Earlier this year, a federal appeals court eviscerated the FCC’s Open Internet (aka net neutrality) rule following a legal challenge by Verizon, effectively allowing ISPs to give priority access to their own content (or content from sites and services that pay for the privilege) while also blocking or throttling access to competing services and content. Net neutrality has been recuperating from that back-breaking defeat in a virtual underground prison, but is now preparing to scale the wall and return to the real world. [More]
Could Consumers’ Frustration With Mortgage Closings Be Solved By eClosing System?
By 4.23.14
After months of searching for a home, going through the process of applying for a mortgage, providing support for every speck of dust in your piggy bank (often multiple times), you finally get to closing day, where you’re often rushed through hundreds of papers of documents you’ve never seen before, hoping that you’re not inadvertently signing away your firstborn. Isn’t there something that can be done to make the closing process less daunting and more transparent? [More]
There’s A Potentially Itchy Black Market For The Recalled Fitbit Force
By 4.23.14
After Consumerist played a large role in getting the Fitbit Force recalled, I set up a Google alert to let me know when news about the product hits the Interweb. Since the official recall almost six weeks ago, I sort of expected to see a decrease in mentions of the product. I didn’t expect to see sales listings from a small, disingenuous Fitbit Force black market. [More]
GM Shipping Kits To Finally Repair Ignition Defect Responsible For 13 Deaths
By 4.23.14
Amid probes from legislators, regulators, lawyers and criminal investigators into how General Motors managed to get away with allowing more than a million vehicles to hit the road with defective ignition switches tied to at least 13 deaths, the car maker has finally begun shipping out kits to its dealerships so they can start fixing the problem. [More]
Tax Refund Fraudsters May Have Targeted Physicians
By 4.22.14
Plenty of Americans don’t file their tax returns until the very last week: it’s just human nature. We shared scary warnings many times before this year’s April 15 deadline that fraudsters are filing Americans’ returns before they do, harvesting their refunds. Some even scarier news (if you’re a health care provider) broke today: some state medical societies report outbreaks of tax return scams among their members. [More]
GM Asks Bankruptcy Court To Block Ignition-Related Lawsuits
By 4.22.14
A few weeks back, new General Motors CEO Mary Barra hedged on whether her company would hide behind the shield of its 2009 bankruptcy in order to block lawsuits tied to the ongoing ignition-related recalls, telling lawmakers only that “we have civic responsibilities as well as legal responsibilities.” In the weeks since, GM has made it very clear that it will do everything it can to use its own financial incompetence and ineptitude to put up a wall against these lawsuits. [More]
Private Student Loan Borrowers Face Automatic Default Because Of Co-Signer Provisions
By 4.22.14
College graduates with private student loans know the importance of staying current on their payments. But a new report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finds that even consumers who pay their loans on time are finding themselves placed in default when the co-signer of their loan dies or declares bankruptcy. [More]
Supreme Court Justices Grill Coca-Cola Over Scarcity Of Pomegranates In Pomegranate Juice
By 4.22.14
As the top judicial body in the land, the United States Supreme Court has asked some pretty tough questions in its day. But yesterday the justices had a question for Coca-Cola that doesn’t seem like it should be so tricky: Shouldn’t a juice labeled as “pomegranate and blueberry” actually include a fair amount of, um, pomegranates? And blueberries? [More]
Netflix Increasing Prices, Thinks Comcast-Time Warner Merger Is A Terrible Idea
By 4.21.14
This afternoon, Netflix released its latest earnings report, where the company told the world about its $53 million quarterly profit and impressive growth in subscriptions. That’s all very interesting, but not what we at Consumerist are interested in. We care about one other piece of information that Netflix mentioned: they plan to raise prices for the first time in years. [More]
Brewers Claim Proposed FDA Animal Feed Rules Would Raise Prices For Beer
By 4.21.14
One might not make the obvious connection between animal feed and beer brewing, but every year the nation’s brewers provide millions of tons of low- or no-cost animal feed to farmers in the form of spent grain left over from the brewing process. But a proposed rule update by the Food and Drug Administration may make it harder for brewers and farmers to continue this relationship. [More]
Why Every Driver Should Care About The GM Ignition Recall
By 4.21.14
The massive ongoing recall of General Motors vehicles with faulty ignition switches (and the dozen years the company spent not issuing a recall) has made headlines, launched lawsuits, angered legislators, but many consumers who don’t own a recalled car have shrugged and said, “Glad I don’t drive one of them.” [More]
