FCC Proposes Expanding ‘Obamaphone’ To Internet
by Tom Risen, U.S. News & World Report
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Tuesday explained his proposal to expand the Lifeline program aims to assist some of the 64 million Americans who have difficulty affording Internet access. … “Internet access has become a pre-requisite for full participation in our economy and our society, but nearly one in five Americans is still not benefitting from the opportunities made possible by the most powerful and pervasive platform in history,” [Wheeler wrote.] Though often called “Obamaphone” by its critics, the Lifeline program was launched in 1985 by Ronald Reagan’s administration and offered a $9.25-per-month subsidy to help low-income Americans pay for landline phones. Read More ›
FCC Cracks Down On Verizon Wireless For Using ‘Supercookies’
by Andrea Peterson, Washington Post
The practice came to the public’s attention in late 2014, when it received criticism from privacy advocates who called the code a “supercookie” because it was almost impossible for users to avoid. … Last January, researcher Jonathan Mayer revealed evidence that others could hijack the supercookie for their own purposes: An online advertising company called Turn was using the codes to help follow people around online, he said. Turn used the supercookie to “respawn” its traditional cookies — even if users took steps to protect their privacy by removing the cookies. Read More ›
CFC, Other Groups Urge FCC To Protect Personal Privacy From Internet, Telecom and Cable Companies
The letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler rejects the looser regulatory framework advocated by broadband Internet service providers (ISPs). The ISPs’ approach relies in large part on existing Federal Trade Commission rules that have done little to restrain ISPs’ aggressive mining of their subscribers’ data for marketing purposes, the consumer and privacy groups warn. ISPs such as Verizon, Comcast and Cox can exploit the personal data they amass on Web surfers, cable and streaming television viewers and smartphone users – not just marketing to their own customers but also selling the information to third parties. Read More ›
Hey, Siri And Alexa: Let’s Talk Privacy Practices
by Elizabeth Weise, USA Today
The worry is that this trickle of helpful adjuncts could become a flood of invasive devices bent on listening and learning from everything we say around them. … Could there come a day when talking about buying a faucet in the kitchen could be overheard by your TV in the living room, changing the types of commercials that show up when you’re watching your favorite program the next night? … One concern has been that law enforcement might subpoena sound files recorded in a home when investigating a crime, or that they could be discoverable in a divorce proceeding. Read More ›
Get Ready For A World Of Hackable Cars
by Elizabeth Weise, USA Today
“If you’ve got GPS or Bluetooth access or a WiFi hotspot in your car — which is coming — there’s a wide range of hacks for getting in,” [one expert said.] … The convergence between connected cars and nefarious hackers (as opposed to research hackers) is coming, say [others. … One expert] says he does caution friends to avoid the dongles popular with some auto insurance companies that allow them to monitor a car’s actions. It’s one thing to trust Ford or Chevrolet. But with those, he said, “you’re not even trusting your insurance company, your’e trusting whoever they bought the dongle from.” Read More ›
These Are U.S. Consumers’ Top 5 Complaints
by Krystal Steinmetz, Money Talks News
Debt collection gripes made up 29 percent of the complaint calls to the FTC last year, while 16 percent of the complaints were related to identity theft. … “We recognize that identity theft and unlawful debt collection practices continue to cause significant harm to many consumers,” Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. “Steps like the recent upgrade to IdentityTheft.gov and our leadership of a nationwide initiative to combat unlawful debt collection practices are critical to our ongoing work to protect consumers from these harms.” Read More ›
Overdraft Practices Continue To Gut Bank Accounts And Haunt Customers
by Michael Corkery and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, New York Times
The nation’s big consumer banks collected about $11 billion in overdraft fees last year, which accounted for 8 percent of their profits, according to a report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. … Many customers end up confused by how overdrafts work. In their marketing materials, for example, banks present the choice of whether to sign up for overdraft as an offer of “overdraft protection” — a feature many customers thought would automatically deny transactions and shield them from incurring the fees at all. In reality, it is a service authorizing the banks to charge the overdraft fees. Read More ›
Judge Asked To Fine PG&E $112 Million For Carmel Blast
by Jaxon Van Derbeken, San Francisco Chronicle
“PG&E should be reminded that the commission and its staff are not operating on a ‘need-to-know’ basis with PG&E,” [Ed Moldavsky, an attorney for CPUC’s safety division,] wrote in his recommendation. … “PG&E has a duty to disclose even troubling facts to the commission,” Moldavsky wrote. “PG&E’s failure to do so makes a mockery out of the regulatory compact.” … “How many times does the corporate mule need to be hit over the head with a 2-by-4 to get its attention?” [Carmel] city attorneys asked. … “Yet here we are again. The facts are clear, and the law is clear.” Read More ›
Federal Efforts In Data Privacy Move Slowly
by Natasha Singer, New York Times
After Congress failed to take up baseline consumer privacy legislation, the [Obama] administration issued its own discussion draft of a bill last year. … Consumer advocates are not holding their breath, although some are turning to the states to enact consumer privacy protections for technologies like facial recognition, voice-controlled smart TVs and social media services. “An individual should have control over their information,” said Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit group in Washington, “not a Facebook, Google or Internet service provider.” Read More ›
UC Berkeley Breach: Universities Increasingly Targeted By Cyberattacks
by Henry Gass, Christian Science Monitor
From 2013 to 2015, 550 universities reported some kind of data breach, NBC reported last fall, and in 2014 only the health care and retail sectors reported more security breaches than the education sector, according to Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report. … A number of factors make its particularly hard for colleges and universities to defend against cyberattacks. First, the transient nature of the student body means new devices are constantly entering and leaving the university system. Read More ›
Who’s Regulating For-Profit Schools? Execs From For-Profit Colleges
by Annie Waldman, ProPublica
We looked at all [Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools] commissioners since 2010 and found that two-thirds of them have worked as executives at for-profit schools while sitting on the council. A third of the commissioners came from schools that have been facing consumer-protection lawsuits, investigations by state attorneys general, or federal financial monitoring. … Consider Beth Wilson. Wilson, the executive vice president of Corinthian Colleges, joined ACICS in 2014, less than three months after the California attorney general had filed a lawsuit against Corinthian for … Read More ›
Abandoned Nursing Home Residents Live Months In Hospital, Waiting
by Anna Gorman, KQED
Nursing home residents are entitled to hearings under federal law to determine whether they should be readmitted after hospitalization. The state Department of Health Care Services holds the administrative hearings, but has said it is not responsible for enforcing the rulings. But the state Department of Public Health, which oversees nursing homes, neglects to enforce the rulings and sometimes disagrees with them, according to advocates and court documents. … And since many nursing home residents have publicly-funded insurance, it means taxpayers are on the hook for hospital stays long after the patients are ready for discharge. Read More ›
Police Agencies Tap Secret Cellphone System
by Teri Sforza and Lily Leung, The Orange County Register
The devices mimic wireless telecommunications towers and can trick cellphones into connecting to them rather than the towers. Police then can collect data from the phones, including phone numbers and GPS points. Their use has grown increasingly controversial, particularly as it has spread from federal to local agencies. … “My concern is whether there are sufficient safeguards to ensure the protection of privacy with regard to this technology,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law scholar and dean of UC Irvine’s School of Law. “Public knowledge of this technology is an essential first step.” Read More ›