While you may not have heard of Compal, it’s possible that you’re reading this post on a laptop computer or desktop monitor manufactured by them. They manufacture computers for more familiar names like Dell, Compaq, HP, and… Toshiba.
Toshiba blamed the “harsh price competition” in the television market for their struggle to turn a profit from selling TVs in North America. It will also seek similar licensing agreements with another manufacturer for its television products in other countries. Instead of bothering with the television business, the company will simply rent out its name to Compal. This could work out badly if Compal sells subpar televisions.
Our alert colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports had the same question that we did: who will handle repairs and distribute parts for Toshiba TVs sold under the older regime? Toshiba will continue to sell computers in the United States, so it may be able to provide service and sell remaining parts through that operation.
Toshiba gives up selling TVs in the U.S [Consumer Reports]
Yes, it seems obvious, but the key is to watch specifically for these deals. Sometimes the savings can be substantial. Travis Pizel over at Money Ning started to keep track of bonus gift card deals when he came across them, and encountered quite a few in just a month or so of looking. They even included local restaurants, which he found as part of a package deal at Costco where $100 worth of gift cards cost $80, an immediate 20% off discount.
Other deals that he discovered were mostly at national chain restaurants, like Outback Steakhouse (an extra $20 gift card if you buy a $100 card) or the same promotion at Red Lobster. One tricky transaction is at Buffalo Wild Wings, where there’s a time limit on the second gift card: you can’t use both in the same transaction.
You’re saving exactly zero dollars, of course, if you buy gift cards that you’ll never use, or that force you to go somewhere you don’t like.
How to Save Money at Restaurants by Buying Gift Cards [MoneyNing] (via Lifehacker)
We all kind of know that credit card data isn’t terribly secure, and that the payment information is likely to get swiped eventually. But that information is all theoretically anonymous. Without a name, address, or ZIP code attached, our credit card information doesn’t say much about us personally, right? Wrong.
A study released by researchers at MIT this week shows just how easy to spot almost all of us our just by our spending, the AP reports.
The research team wanted to know: how much “anonymized” data would it take to identify you? If your ZIP code and name and all other identifying information are stripped away, how many records does someone need to figure out who you are?
The answer is: four. At most. Three, if at least one price is included.
That’s all it takes to pick you out of a crowd with over 90% accuracy, the research team found.
Any three or four transactions can give you away, and it doesn’t have to be anything fancy like air travel. Kleenex, coffee, and a sandwich? If the researchers could see the price for any one of those items, they could figure out who it was doing the spending.
The researchers looked at transaction information from 10,000 retailers (not in the U.S.), with each piece of data time-stamped. They were then able basically to reverse engineer identities from spending:
As an example, the researchers wrote about looking at data from September 23 and 24 and who went to a bakery one day and a restaurant the other. Searching through the data set, they found there could be only person who fits the bill – they called him Scott. The study said, “and we now know all of his other transactions, such as the fact that he went shopping for shoes and groceries on 23 September, and how much he spent.”
The study also found that it was easier to identify women than men by their spending alone, though did not determine why that is.
The complete lack of anonymity in “anonymized” data is a major area of concern for privacy experts and even the FTC. The ability for “non personally identifiable” data to in fact personally identify basically everyone is, at best, a hazard to privacy and, at worst, downright menacing. If you buy things less innocuous than a muffin — like medical supplies — you probably don’t want every company in the world able to follow your digital breadcrumbs and figure out who you are.
‘Anonymized’ credit card data not so anonymous, study shows [Associated Press]
It all started back in Sept. 2010 when the FTC filed an administrative complaint against POM Wonderful, seeking to keep it from making health benefit claims without providing independent scientific research that backed up those claims, and from making statements about disease prevention or treatment without approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
The FTC argues that POM Wonderful goes beyond the normal touting of generally accepted health benefits from pomegranates (like that they contain nutrients and antioxidants), and accused it of making statements that its juice fought atherosclerosis, prostate cancer and other specific diseases, and claimed that these statements were backed up by medical research.
The ruling, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed a January 2014 FTC decision that the marketers of POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice and POMx supplements deceptively advertised that the products could treat, prevent, or reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer, and erectile dysfunction, and were clinically proven to have such benefits, a press release from the FTC says. This allows the government to ban POM Wonderful from marketing its products with such claims.
While the court didn’t uphold the FTC’s order requiring two randomized, well-controlled human clinical trials by POM before making disease prevention, it did affirm the FTC’s order requiring at least one such study, and said there could be a time when two might be warranted in certain cases.
Judges also disagreed with the company’s argument that its ads are protected by the First Amendment.
Judge Sri Srinivasan said in the ruling that the FTC’s deceptions findings “are supported by substantial evidence,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
“Many of those ads mischaracterized the scientific evidence concerning the health benefits of Pom’s products with regard to those diseases,” the judge wrote in a 45-page opinion.
“Consumers know that pomegranate juice is inherently healthy, and Pom Wonderful has always communicated with consumers in a transparent, honest manner, delivering valuable information about the potential health benefits of our products,” a POME spokesman said, ostensibly while swilling said juice.
In a statement from FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, the agency calls the rule a “victory for consumers.”
“It is in keeping with established law that advertisers who market products for serious health conditions must have rigorous science to back up those claims,” her statement reads. “The court specifically recognized that this applies to food and dietary supplement marketers such as POM. It also held that requiring a randomized, well-controlled human clinical study for future disease benefit claims is an appropriate remedy based on POM’s conduct.”
Appeals Court Upholds FTC’s Deception Findings on Pom Wonderful [Wall Street Journal]
The New York Post reports the 38-year-old man, who has worked as a greeter at the store since he was 19, filed the lawsuit this week in a U.S. District Court, claiming that he was subjected to a hostile environment because of his disability.
According to the lawsuit, when new management took over at the Costco store in 2103, they disregarded the company’s Code of Ethics and systematically targeted, discriminated against and physically endangered the man.
“Appallingly, instead of ‘taking care’ of [the plaintiff], Costco subjected him to the same discrimination and stigmatism he has fought against his entire life,” the suit states. “For nearly the past two years, [the plaintiff] has endured unabated harassment, scrutiny, and ridicule so severe that it sent Plaintiff’s disabilities into a tailspin, and resulted in [the man’s] most recent hospitalization.”
The man alleges that when the new managers were hired, they immediately made it known that they did not like the man.
At times one manager allegedly told the employee, “I cringe every time I walk by you.”
The man claims in the lawsuit that the managers refused to allow him to take required medication and “maliciously stood by as Costco employees verbally assaulted [the man] with tasteless comments such as ‘hut-hut-hike,’ a jibe meant to mock the man’s uncontrollable grunts.”
In addition to being taunted by managers and employees, the man claims he was reprimanded for complimenting customers and was transferred from his position as a greeter to a cashier’s assistant position.
Managers told the man they believed the new position would keep the man so busy that he would not be able to interact with customers.
“Clearly, Defendant shamefully wished to hide Plaintiff away from its patrons on the basis of Plaintiff’s disabilities and their attendant symptoms,” the suit states.
According to the lawsuit, the man attempted to bring the issues to the attention of Costco’s CEO, but the efforts made no difference.
The issues culminated one day in November, when according to the lawsuit, the man hit his breaking point and suffered a debilitating panic attack while at work. He had to be taken from work in an ambulance, and is currently on leave for work-related stress.
“This episode was directly spurred on by the increased stress and anxiety [the plaintiff] experienced as a result of his maltreatment at Costco,” the suit states. “To date, the Plaintiff continues to recover from his attack.”
The man is seeking compensatory, emotional, psychological and punitive damages, lost compensation, front and back pay, injunctive relief and other damages for the alleged treatment and violations.
Verizon has been watching you. If you use their mobile service, Verizon has been tracking your every move on the internet for the better part of the last two years, with no way for you to opt out. That’s the bad news. Here’s the good: the company is finally letting consumers turn off the trackers.
The news comes from the New York Times, which reports that Verizon is easing up on the perma-tracking after years of pushback.
Here’s how it works: Verizon appends a little header that you can’t see to all web traffic coming out of your phone. The tracker, called a UIDH (unique ID header) is consistent and permanent. Unlike regular site tracking code, clearing out your cookies and upping your privacy settings doesn’t do anything about these. And they build a comprehensive, unique, entirely trackable history of basically everything you’ve ever Googled or visited on your phone.
All the time. Usable by third parties (even though Verizon says it’s not).
If that feels to you like a privacy disaster waiting to happen — or really, already in progress — you’re not alone. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, among others, has been calling for Verizon to halt the practice.
Customers have already been able to opt out of receiving ads based on the tracking information, but have been unable to opt out of having the data collected. That, finally, is going to change.
In a statement, a Verizon representative said, “We listen to our customers and provide them the ability to opt out of our advertising programs. We have begun working to expand the opt-out to include the identifier referred to as the UIDH, and expect that to be available soon.”
There’s no official word on when “soon” might be, but hopefully it’s on the order of days or weeks rather than months or years.
Verizon Wireless to Allow Complete Opt Out of Mobile ‘Supercookies’ [New York Times]
On the surface, pizza boxes are extremely simple. They’re boxes that are used for a very short time to transport a pizza between the oven and the home it’s delivered to. They have to be sturdy and keep the pizza warm, but not trap steam inside so it becomes soggy. This is more difficult than you might think.
If you’re into checking where things are made, look at the box the next time you order pizza to see where it came from. The most likely candidate is Rock-Tenn, a Georgia-based company that makes boxes for nationwide chains like Pizza Hut, Little Caesar’s, Domino’s, and Papa John’s as well as your neighborhood pizza joint. They print branded boxes for the big chains, branded boxes for little shops, short runs of boxes for special promotions, and generic boxes that are good for any size shop as long as it sells pizzas.
Rock-Tenn makes about half of the pizza boxes used in this country. They have 17 factories that make pizza boxes, and six of them make nothing but pizza boxes all day.
Super Bowl Challenge for Box Makers: 12.5 Million Pizzas [Wall Street Journal]
It’s been a whirlwind week for the relationship between e-commerce giant Alibaba and the Chinese government. After one agency released a report criticizing the company for allowing fake goods to be sold online through its vendors, and another government group promised to crack down on such practices in general, Alibaba is now pledging to shape up its business practices.
Alibaba and its eBay-like subsidiary Taobao at first seemed a bit ticked off by Wednesday’s white paper from the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, which alleged that “Alibaba Group hasn’t been paying enough attention to the mismanagement of the Alibaba Internet transaction platforms for a long time.”
Taobao said in a statement at the time that the site is “willing to assume the responsibility of fighting fakes,” while also saying it would file a formal complaint with the SAIC regarding the investigation. It alleged that a top SAIC official demonstrated “procedural misconduct during the supervision process” and that SAIC obtained a “biased conclusion using the wrong methodology.”
But as of yesterday, the white paper was removed from SAIC’s site, and today Alibaba has come forward to pledge a renewed effort to prevent fake goods from being sold online. This, after the value of its U.S.-traded shares took a major hit, reports the Associated Press.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma and the director of the SAIC met and pledged to work together more closely to fight sales of fake items, the agency said.
Though e-commerce “still has problems” says SAIC director Zhang Mao in the statement, it’s still important to create jobs and keep the economy robust, so companies need to “strengthen self-discipline.”
“The two sides will strengthen communication to jointly explore management of online markets and build a new pattern of governance,” said the statement, citing Alibaba’s Ma as promising to spend more on culling fake goods from the online racks. “Regulators will further strengthen Internet market supervision.”
Alibaba promises more action against fake goods [Associated Press]
Once again the complaints come via journalist and consumer advocate Christopher Elliott’s blog, which first broke the news of the A**hole incident.
As that story caught fire online, other Comcast customers reached out to Elliott with claims that their accounts were altered with offensive names.
One customer’s bill added the word “Whore” to the name on her account.
“What’s most interesting is that Comcast said the ‘whore’ was added on Dec. 6,” she tells Elliott. “I have no record of any recent contact with Comcast until Dec. 16. So whoever chose to re-name me picked my account out of a hat. That says there are probably millions of us out there who Comcast employees have renamed. We need to find all of them.”
The woman, whose name is not “Whore,” said she had to speak with “at least 20″ Comcast staffers over the course of several weeks before her account was finally fixed.
And it’s not just happening to customers with paper bills. One Comcast subscriber says she checked her account online and saw that her first name had been replaced with “dummy.”
“They changed my name to ‘dummy’ in my online account, so that the greeting was ‘Hello, dummy,’” she tells Elliott. “I had to call several times but they said they didn’t see it until I went in person to Comcast and they removed it.”
She claims that no one offered an apology or explanation for how the name change occurred.
A third customer says that after his parents called Comcast to remove their phone and TV services from the account, the first name on the account was mysteriously changed to “Fakoe,” which in no way resembles the name previously on the account.
“This ‘Fakoe’ name is nowhere near either of their monikers and seems to be an insult in the form of the F-word aimed towards my parents,” the customers’ kid explains.
One former subcontractor for Comcast explains how it’s easy to make these name changes, but that it would have to be deliberate.
“There are no confirmations or prompts asking you if you want to do something or not,” he tells Elliott. “But it does take some serious navigation to get to the portion of the biller, or the software they used to make changes on accounts, where you change account names and information. So the rep who changed the customer’s name to ‘a**hole’ couldn’t have done it by accident.”
We’ve contacted Comcast HQ for comment on this latest spate of insulting name-changes and will update when we hear anything back.
This is according to TVpredictions.com, which reports that Comcast recently dropped its standard HBO subscription rate from $18.95 to $15, which just happens to be the number that most — including Consumerist readers — are predicting for the HBO streaming service.
What’s more, Comcast is apparently offering a promotion that cuts the monthly rate to $10 for people who order online.
Comcast’s proposed merger partner is also offering that same discounted rate for online orderers of HBO.
That’s the same introductory price that Verizon FiOS is now offering customers for 12 months, doubling its previous promotional offer of six months at $10. Though it still looks like the price will jump to $20/month after that year passes.
TVpredictions notes that Comcast also dropped its standard monthly price on Showtime and Starz from $17 to $12, which may or may not have anything to do with the fact that both of these premium networks have said they plan to get into the standalone streaming business.
Several signs point to cable companies selling access to the HBO streaming service, which would allow them to continue making money off these premium channels.
That might explain why the satellite providers, Dish and DirecTV, have not dropped their HBO rates, as they don’t currently offer an all-in-one TV and broadband service like the terrestrial cable operators. They do stand to lose some business from subscribers who no longer have a reason to pay for live TV, but at the same time many of their customers — especially those in rural areas — may not have broadband access that would be fast enough to handle HD video streaming.
Again, until HBO finally pulls the curtain off its service, much of this is speculation.
