Category Archives: CFC in the News
California: Weighing a Response on Internet Privacy
by Mike McPhate, New York Times
President Trump this month signed a resolution to undo internet privacy rules that would have kept companies like AT&T and Comcast from selling users’ browsing histories and other personal data. Almost immediately, a number of states moved to pass new rules that would in effect replicate those nullified by Congress. But California, a pioneer of privacy protections, has so far been silent. Read More ›
Pink Tax Repeal Act Aims To Make Pricing Fair To Women
by Carla Fried, Consumer Reports
Last Friday, Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA) aimed to put an end to pricing products according to gender. She introduced the Pink Tax Repeal Act—a bill that would prohibit companies from charging different prices for similar products or services simply based on the gender of the customer. …
“As a rule, the man’s version or a neutrally-branded product is going to be less costly than the womens or girls version,” says Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California. “Consider buying products that aren’t specifically labeled for the use of women.” Read More ›
Bill Calling For Price Equity For Items Marketed To Females Fails
by Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California … said his organization would try again next year. Women already earn less than men in wages for similar work, he said, “and then when they spend their hard-earned dollars, they’re charged more.” Read More ›
Bill To End Gender Disparity In Retail Pricing Is Withdrawn After Pushback From Industry Lobbyists
by Jazmine Ulloa, Los Angeles Times
“It loaded the decks so that it was unenforceable,” said Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California. “We are very angry that what we find is another example where corporate interests dominate the majority.” Read More ›
ConsumerWatch Weekend Roundup
Julie Watts’ featured guest on Saturday was Richard Holober of the Consumer Federation of California, whose organization is one of many consumer groups urging regulators to revise the standard for child car seat flammability. Read More ›
Consumer Advocates Back FCC Proposal For Broadband Privacy Rules
by Rick Weber, Inside Cybersecurity
Consumer advocates are backing the general intention of a Federal Communications Commission proposal that would impose privacy requirements on Internet service providers. Read More ›
Lawmakers Sweat Details Of Consumer Health Privacy
by Cheryl Miller, The Recorder (San Francisco)
“We are in total agreement with the intent of the bill and believe that it’s very, very important that this information be given strong privacy protections,” Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California, told the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee. But “we’ve had a lot of experience over the years with various privacy laws and how courts interpret those laws and … we want to be very precise about how a bill is written to make sure that it’s being interpreted by the industry and the courts as it was intended,” Holober said. Read More ›
Bill Aims To End ‘Pink Tax’ On Products
by Alia Ismay, San Diego Union-Tribune
Hueso’s Senate Bill 899 is sponsored by the Consumer Federation of California. It states that “no business establishment of any kind whatsoever may discriminate, with respect to the price charged for goods of a substantially similar or like kind, against a person because of the person’s gender.” Products are defined as “substantially similar” when they are the same brand, have the same functional components and share 90 percent of the same materials or ingredients. … The bill does not prohibit price differences based on labor, material or other “gender-neutral” factors. Read More ›
State Senate Looks At Banning Gender-Based Bias In Retail Pricing
by Bob Egelko and Melody Gutierrez, San Francisco Chronicle
Lisa Cuesta, a constituent of [SB 899 author Ben] Hueso’s in Chula Vista and chief operations officer of Casa Familiar, a social services nonprofit … [is] the mother of a 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy and says she’s unhappily gotten accustomed to paying $1 to $3 more for toy building blocks or plastic cars and trucks that are pink, purple or yellow — pastels marketed as girls’ colors, she said. “I don’t have the luxury or the time to go into the boys’ section and into the girls’ section” to look for the best deal, Cuesta said in an interview. Read More ›
Women’s Products That Cost More Than Men’s? It’s Called The ‘Pink Tax’, And Not Everyone’s Mad
by Teri Sforza, Orange County Register
Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation, said with exasperation that a Levi’s One Pocket Boyfriend Shirt has been marketed to women for $78. Their boyfriends, he said, could buy a nearly identical shirt for $48. “Add the word ‘boyfriend’ and put the shirt on a woman, and the price goes up by $30,” Holober said. “Businesses have figured out, through a lot of research, how to extract extra dollars by giving products a veneer of being designed especially for girls or women. But that’s not right.” Read More ›