When it comes to verbal throwdowns, Panera CEO Ron Shaich isn’t shy about expressing how he really feels about the chain’s rivals. Now, he’s challenging fast food executives to eat exclusively from their kids’ menus to prove they really like their own offerings. [More]
fighting words
Why Your Social Media Feed May Be Filled With Pledges To #DeleteUber
By 1.30.17
Over the weekend and this morning, your social media feed may be filled with friends urging others to #DeleteUber and stop using the ride-hailing service. How does a popular app go from top of the heap to boycott target in just a few days? [More]
Aeropostale Accuses Lender Of Purposely Squeezing It Into Bankruptcy
By 5.4.16
Soon after former mall staple Aeropostale filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, it turned around and threw darts at one of its lenders, which it accused of working behind the scenes to force the company’s hand. [More]
Great Harvest Bread Suing Panera Over Trademarked Slogan
By 3.10.16
Back in 2014, Great Harvest Bread Company trademarked what it thought was a neat slogan: “Bread. The Way it Ought to Be.” So when fellow baked goods peddler Panera Bread introduced its slogan, “Food as it should be” in 2015, that hit a little too close to home for Great Harvest. [More]
IBM Lawsuit Accuses Groupon Of Infringing On Its Patents, Including One For Prodigy
By 3.3.16
Do you remember Prodigy, the online service that had many a mid-1990s user surfing the Internet, in the early days of the World Wide Web? IBM sure does, considering it holds patents for that dinosaur of the technological age, and is accusing Groupon of infringing on two patents that grew out of Prodigy, as well as a few others, in a new lawsuit. [More]
Judge: It’s Not Nice To Leave Nasty Notes On Speeding Tickets, But It’s Your Constitutional Right To Do So
By 9.16.15
No one gets a speeding ticket and rushes out to pay it with glee, at least, no one who likes holding onto their money. But even if it’s pretty rude to scrawl an obscene message when paying that ticket, it’s speech that’s protected by the First Amendment. That’s according to a judge who said a man’s civil rights were violated when he was arrested for writing a nasty note on a speeding ticket in New York in 2012. [More]
Time Warner CEO Isn’t Worried About Cable TV’s Fate: “Netflix Is Good, But Not That Good”
By 8.28.15
While cable companies’ investors might be shaking in their boots whenever the word “Netflix” pops up, the streaming video service isn’t the giant slayer it’s been made out to be — at least according to Time Warner Inc. Jeff Bewkes, who says his HBO is better than Netflix. [More]
Uber Pushing Back On New York City’s Plans To Put Limits On For-Hire Vehicle Fleet Expansion
By 7.20.15
In Uber’s quest to take over the world, expansion is key — the more drivers it has on the roads picking up passengers, the better its business will do. But in New York City, the company will have to fight to grow its fleet as local authorities consider putting limits on just how many for-hire vehicles will be cruising the streets. [More]
Clash Of The Fitness Trackers: Jawbone Lawsuit Accuses Fitbit Of Stealing Trade Secrets, Other Info
By 5.28.15
That rumble you hear in the gym, amid the clanking and whirring and grunting? It’s two fitness trackers going at it, just in time for one of the companies to go public: Jawbone has filed a lawsuit against Fitbit, claiming its rival stole Jawbone employees in order to get trade secrets the workers had swiped on the job, among other things. [More]
Cablevision Sues Verizon Over FiOS Ads, Claims Verizon’s Touted All-Fiber Network Actually Isn’t
By 5.20.15
Most of the country doesn’t have much competition for broadband services. But in some of New York City’s boroughs, particularly Brooklyn and the Bronx, Cablevision and Verizon FiOS fight head to head for residential customers. The battle between the two is often ugly, and with a new lawsuit filed yesterday, it just got uglier. [More]
Burger King Fires Employee Caught On Camera Cursing At Customer Over A Refund
By 4.9.15
While dealing with customer complaints is never a fun experience for anyone in the service industry, lashing out isn’t going to help things, especially now that anyone with a smartphone can be a filmmaker. A Burger King franchisee in Louisiana says its fired a worker who was caught on tape cursing at a customer who’d asked for a refund. [More]
How A Fight Over $255 Carpet Installation Led To Death Threats
By 3.13.15
It all started with a 10 x 10 foot piece of carpet, and now an argument over its installation has erupted into threats from both the customer and the business, police in Indiana say. [More]
12-Year-Old Girl Writes Letter To Dick’s Sporting Goods Explaining That Women Also Play Basketball
By 10.10.14
While it’s all well and good for us adults to stand up for gender equality in kids’ products, there’s something about kids themselves taking retailers to task for not giving both boys and girls a fair shake. Leading the pack of girls who aren’t about to take a boys-only view of the sports world this week is a 12-year-old who was so disappointed in Dick’s Sporting Goods for not featuring women in a recent basketball catalog, she took the company to task in a scathing, informed and otherwise wonderful letter. [More]
Power Mad Pasta Pass Owner Attempts To Make Us His Vassals
By 9.19.14
It was a day like any other day. In fact, it was, and is today. The sky was bright, the sun was high in the sky and nothing was wr– oh HOLD UP. One of our readers got a neverending Pasta Pass from Olive Garden and thinks that we should be in thrall to him? Uh uh. This is a Consumeristocracy, pal. [More]
Grocery Store Shopper Calls The Cops On A Mom For Dropping F-Bombs In Front Of Her Kids
By 8.15.14
Is it a crime to swear at your children? That’s the question in one South Carolina town right now, after a Kroger customer called the cops on her fellow shopper for allegedly dropping f-bombs in front of her children. [More]
N.Y. Bar Changes “No Irish Drunks” Sign To “No Sensitive Drunks”
By 7.28.14
It’s time for us to make peace with our Irish brethren, America. A veritable war of words between our country and the Emerald Isle sprung up when a cafe in Ireland posted a sign telling “loud Americans” to stay away, a controversy that pulled in a New York establishment warning “NO IRISH DRUNKS” were allowed. The good news is we seem to have settled things and can all agree that anyone can be loud and drunk, we’re all humans, after all. [More]
Company Vows To Fight San Francisco Over App That Auctions Off Public Parking Spots
By 6.27.14
Last week, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent a cease-and-desist letter to mobile app company MonkeyParking, telling to quit allowing users to auction off their public park spots. But now the company’s CEO is all, “Bring it, because we’re not quitting without a fight,” if I might paraphrase his response. [More]
JetBlue Flight Diverted After Passenger Wakes Up, Starts “Flipping Out”
By 6.16.14
It seems JetBlue had its hands full this weekend, what with the news of a little girl wetting herself in her seat after she was told she couldn’t use her plane’s restroom while it was on the tarmac, as well as an incident that diverted another flight when a passenger reportedly woke up and started “flipping out.” [More]
