Now that Operation Chokehold–the plan to stress AT&T’s 3G network today–has taken root in the media, Fake Steve Jobs is trying to redirect the enthusiasm into something that’s more television friendly. [More]
PROTESTS
Operation Chokehold: AT&T Users To Protest Slow Network By Simultaneously Running Data-Intensive Apps This Friday, 3pm Eastern
By 12.16.09
Sick of AT&T’s unreliability and dropped calls, participants in this Friday’s “Operation Chokehold” are plotting an act of consumer disobedience to bring the network “to its knees.” [More]
California Students Protest, Riot Over Tuition Gouging
By 11.20.09
Responding to UC regents’ efforts to slap students with a 32 percent tuition increase, groups at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UCLA and other schools took to the streets, 1960s style, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Dave Carroll Launches Second "United Breaks Guitars" Song And Video
By 8.18.09
Musician Dave Carroll hit the jackpot with his first song, “United Breaks Guitars,” last month. The song, the video, and the subsequent media coverage formed a perfect anti-ad for United’s poor handling of customer property. Now he’s released the second of his planned three-song cycle and this one has more of a “we could have had something together” feel to it. Like any sequel, it’s about 600 times more elaborate. We’ll always love “United Breaks Guitars” most of all, but it’s great to see Carroll continue his one-man shaming of an airline for not doing the right thing when it had the chance.
Did Dave Carroll's Broken Guitar Videos Cost United $180 Million?
By 7.25.09
The Times of London claims that public relations fallout from Dave Carroll’s catchy videos panning United Airlines for breaking his beloved $3500 Taylor guitar and then denying his damage claim may have cost the airline’s shareholders up to $180 million.
United Breaks Guitars
By 7.7.09
When United Airlines broke Dave Carroll’s $3500 Taylor guitar in the the spring of 2008, he contacted them to ask for compensation. After all, he and other passengers watched from the plane as United baggage handlers actually threw his guitar around on the tarmac. United said they wouldn’t pay for the damages, so Carroll wrote this catchy song about how much United sucks. We think it should go in United’s next ad campaign.
Car Dealership Picketing: American West Coast Edition
By 6.15.09
Remember the disgruntled Range Rover owner in England who lettered his complaints on the vehicle and parked it in front of the dealership? Reader M.H. discovered his American counterpart standing in front of a Hyundai dealership in Vancouver, Washington.
Range Rover Protests Its Own Existence Outside Dealership
By 6.3.09
Sure, if you’re dissatisfied with your vehicle, you could complain to the company. You could write to Consumerist, or even start your own Web site. Or you could park it in front of the dealership that it came from, with a list of the vehicle’s flaws and a warning to potential buyers plastered on in vinyl letters. A man in Colchester, England did just that.
National Federation Of The Blind Mounts Protest Over Kindle 2 Restrictions
By 4.6.09
When the Authors Guild successfully agitated for the right to selectively remove the text-to-speech feature from books read on Amazon’s Kindle 2, they alienated an entire group of potential consumers: people who have trouble reading normal printed works. Now a group called the Reading Rights Coalition is going to storm the Authors Guild’s NYC office tomorrow at noon to protest.
Dressless Brides Picket Bankrupt Millburn NJ Bridal Shop
By 11.3.08
About 10 women who paid up to $4,000 for dresses they never received picketed the bankrupt Calvary Bridal House in Millburn, NJ this past weekend, screaming and holding hand-made signs that said things like “Fraud” “Scam” and “”Bride in stress, where’s my dress?”
Amazon Pulls Negative Reviews Of 'Spore,' Then Reinstates Them
By 9.12.08
Earlier today, about 2200 reviews of the game Spore disappeared from the product page on Amazon.com, almost all of them negative. Did Amazon censor the reviews because of their anti-DRM nature? Amazon says no, that it was a technical glitch, and they restored the reviews by the end of today. An Amazon spokesperson told Ars Technica, “Amazon doesn’t censor or edit customer reviews based [on their content] and we’d only remove a review if it fell outside our guidelines.” Spore’s rating is back to a single star, and it’s #5 on Amazon’s video games chart.
Protesters Taunt Goldman Sachs Employees By Singing "Frosty The Goldman" Outside Company Christmas Party
By 1.8.08
Last week a clutch of protesters sang parodic carols outside the Goldman Sachs Christmas party at the hoity-toity BLVD club to protest the companies involvement with subprime mortgages.
California Supreme Court: Feel Free To Protest Inside The Mall
By 12.26.07
In a 4-to-3 decision, the court said a San Diego mall violated California law protecting free speech when its owners barred protesters from distributing leaflets in front of one of the mall’s stores, asking shoppers not to give the store their business.
Flyer's Rights Group To Stage Demonstration In D.C.
By 9.14.07
The protest’s organizers are planning to build a mock commercial aircraft that has seen its passengers’ patience and infrastructure wear thin after hours of idling. The 28-foot aircraft, really a long grey tent made to look like a plane, will be adorned by sounds of crying babies, sneezing customers and overflowing toilets.
Former Marshall Field's Customers Take To The Chicago Streets To Protest Macy's
By 9.10.07
Chicagoans don’t like change. (Take Wrigley Field, for example, in all its jumbotron-less glory.) Yes, they are a strange, stubborn people who do not eat ketchup on hot dogs and who put the sauce on top of their pizza. And they don’t like Macy’s. Why? Because Macy’s did away with Marshall Field’s.
Burger King Offers To Send Employment Recruiters To Tomato Farms
By 2.12.07
To ask Burger King Corporation to pay a penny more a pound for tomatoes to increase workers’ wages is similar to asking shoppers to voluntarily pay a penny more per pound at the grocery store for tomatoes to increase workers’ wages. Both Burger King Corporation and grocery store shoppers have no business relationship with the workers and cannot get the extra penny to them.
Since they don’t want to seem, like, heartless or anything, Burger King has offered to work with the CIW to send human resources folks from BK down to the farm:
Breastfeeding Protesters Target Airlines
By 11.22.06
They’re at it again according to USA Today: “Carrying signs with slogans such as “Best in-flight meal ever,” scores of mothers breast-fed their babies at airports around the country Tuesday in a show of support for a woman who was ordered off a plane for nursing her daughter without covering up.”
Nurse-In Planned at Victoria’s Secret
By 6.30.06
In protest of Victoria’s Secret employees acting like boobs, a national protest plans to whip out theirs.
