Earlier this week, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos rescinded relatively new federal guidelines intended to make the student loan repayment process more accurate and transparent. With the possibility that other federal student loan protections could face the same fate, the Attorneys General from dozens of states are reminding former students of defunct for-profit college chain Corinthian Colleges to apply for federal student loan discharges. [More]
Government Policy
Not Too Late To Get Federal Loan Forgiveness, States Remind Corinthian Students
By 4.13.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
Intuit CEO Wants Your Taxes To Take 5 Seconds On Your Phone
By 4.13.17
If you recognize the name Intuit, you’re probably one of the 40 million people who filed returns last year using its TurboTax software. Facing competitors ranging from storefront tax preparers to free (for now) preparation through a credit report website, the company’s CEO is optimistic about the future. [More]
If Feds Crack Down On Recreational Pot, State May Let Marijuana Stores Reclassify As Medical Dispensaries
By 4.12.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
With the shadow of a possible federal crackdown on retail marijuana looming, Colorado lawmakers are taking steps to try to protect the state’s pot businesses by letting them re-classify as medical weed purveyors if the need arises. [More]
Data Shows Too Many Americans Being Pestered About Medical Debt They Don’t Owe
By 4.12.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
What’s worse than being overwhelmed by medical debt after a hospital stay or doctor’s visit? Being told you owe money for healthcare procedures and services you never received. Yet, a new analysis of federal data shows that too many Americans are being pestered to pay off medical debt that they don’t actually owe. [More]
Internet’s Biggest Companies Ask FCC To Please Leave Net Neutrality Alone
By 4.12.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
Here we are again: Years after the last big net neutrality fight, key players are once more setting down their stakes, drawing their lines in the sand, and every other metaphor for preparing to wage a legalistic battle over the open internet. The latest player to have its say is a trade group representing basically all of the internet’s biggest companies, and it’s begging the FCC to just leave well enough alone already. [More]
Education Secretary DeVos Withdraws Protections For Student Loan Borrowers
By 4.11.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
Relatively new federal guidelines intended to to make the student loan repayment process more accurate and transparent have all been rescinded today by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos — a move that consumer advocates says removes accountability for debt collectors and loan servicers. [More]
Oregon Lawmakers Trying To Prevent Marijuana Shops From Selling Customer Info
By 4.11.17 — Updated: 4.12.17
If you live in a state with legalized recreational marijuana and take advantage of your right to shop at your local pot shop, that retailer might know things about you that you’d rather keep private. That’s why Oregon may soon make it against the law for marijuana retailers to collect or sell their customers’ information. [More]
Feds Go After Stock-Picking Writers That Were Secretly Paid To Hype Up Investments
By 4.10.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
The internet is not lacking in prognosticators telling you which stocks you should or shouldn’t buy. If any of these folks are being compensated — even indirectly — to promote an investment, then they are breaking the law. Today, the Securities and Exchange Commission took action against 27 individuals and companies for their part in hyping up investments without disclosing that money had changed hands. [More]
FCC Scraps Plan To Even Think About Lifting In-Flight Phone Ban
By 4.10.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
While you can now use WiFi to check your email, play games, go online, or watch a movie on a plane, you generally still can’t use it to make a phone call. The FCC is making sure this no-phone refuge remains, by ditching its long-in-the-works plan to lift its ban on in-flight cellphone calls. [More]
New York To Offer Free Tuition At Four-Year Public Universities
By 4.10.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
Hundreds of thousands of New York residents mulling the idea of going to college at a public university could soon enroll for free, as the state’s lawmakers passed a budget over the weekend that included a program that would allow students from middle- and low-income families to attend college for free. [More]
The Internet Privacy Rule Is Dead, But Could Anyone Bring It Back?
By 4.10.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
The laws, rules, and regulations governing our world aren’t etched into mountains; they can be changed. That’s how we got new rules intended to protect our private information from being used and abused by internet service providers, and how we lost those very same rules just a few short months later. Could the pendulum swing back and restore these privacy guidelines? Not likely. [More]
Twitter Says Trump Administration Has Dropped Demand For User’s Identity
By 4.7.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
Twitter has dismissed its lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, saying that the Trump Administration has rescinded its demand that the social media service turn over information about the real identity of a Twitter user who claims to be a federal employee. [More]
New FCC Chair Already Working To Undo Net Neutrality, Claims Report
By 4.7.17
When the FCC adopted the Open Internet Order (most people call it “net neutrality”) in 2015, then-Commissioner Ajit Pai railed against the idea. Now that he’s FCC Chairman, Pai is already quietly working to roll back those rules. [More]
Twitter Fights Trump Administration’s Attempt To Reveal Identity Of Critical ‘Alt’ Immigration Services Account
By 4.6.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
EPA Taken To Court For Ignoring Its Own Science In Deciding To Not Ban Pesticide
By 4.6.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
When Scott Pruitt recently took over as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, one of his first decisions was to deny a petition seeking a ban on a controversial pesticide — only months after scientists of the agency said it poses a significant health risk. Now the EPA is being taken to court for its decision to ignore its own recommendation. [More]
Food Industry Lobbyists Ask FDA To Delay Revised Nutrition Labels For Three Years
By 4.6.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
Three years after the federal government said it would overhaul Nutrition Facts labels for the first time in 20 years, a group of food industry executives and trade groups are asking the Food and Drug Administration to delay implementing those changes by three years. [More]
18 States Urge Congress Not To Stop Prepaid Card Reforms
By 4.5.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
Earlier this year, lawmakers on Capitol Hill began the process of dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s long-awaited prepaid card rules — meant to improve transparency and curb runaway fees — that are set to to go into effect. As Congress prepares to consider three bills that would erase these rules, attorneys general from 18 states have called on legislators to put consumers’ needs over those of the prepaid card industry. [More]
Proposed Bill Would End Warrantless Searches Of Cellphones At U.S. Borders
By 4.4.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
More than 225 years ago, the First U.S. Congress carved out an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s search warrant requirement, allowing for warrantless searches at the border. Until recently, this was limited to the people and their physical items, but federal agents can now search your phones and computers to look at photos, read emails, watch videos — all without having to demonstrate probable cause. A new piece of bipartisan legislation hopes to close that loophole, at least for U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens. [More]
