On July 14, the Federal Trade Commission’s long-awaited rule would have required businesses to make it easy for consumers to cancel subscriptions. Instead, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has clicked to cancel the rule entirely, leaving us all stuck suspended in the elaborate web of subscription services. The three-judge panel, which […]
Do Prices on Ticketmaster Suddenly Seem Much Higher? You’re Not Alone.
For years now, the Ticketmaster experience has been defined by hitting the checkout button and seeing the price of your ticket purchase jump, sometimes nearly double, thanks to so-called “service fees.” Finally, that is going to change. No, Ticketmaster isn’t getting rid of the service charges. But it will now display the full cost of […]
Your Brain Data Is for Sale, Senators Warn
The fledgling neurotechnology space is filled with products that promise all sorts of utility by reading your brainwaves. Whether they actually accomplish much functionality is debatable, but they are apparently succeeding at monetizing the data they collect from your brain. In a letter sent to the Federal Trade Commission, Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer, Maria Cantwell, […]
FTC Says Uber Enrolled People Into Its Subscription Service Without Consent
On Monday, the FTC announced that it is suing Uber for deceptive billing and cancellation practices surrounding its subscription service, Uber One. In its complaint, the FTC claimed that Uber would enroll customers without their consent and bill those who were using a free trial early. Despite its “cancel anytime” promise, Uber also made the […]
Airbnb to Show Full Price by Default Thanks to Biden-Era Rule
The price that you see on an Airbnb listing will finally be the price that you actually pay. On Monday, the rental app announced that it will display the full price of a stay, including fees and taxes (in most locations), by default from the start of listings worldwide. The shift in pricing policy comes […]
Meta Pissed Off Everyone With Poorly Redacted Docs
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is in the middle of a fight to maintain its social media monopoly-like status, and it’s not making many friends along the way. According to The Verge, the company got an earful in the form of lawyer-submitted smackdowns from fellow tech giants who were less than thrilled over the fact that Meta’s […]
Ousted FTC Commissioners Sue Trump Over Firings
Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, the two Democratic commissioners on the Federal Trade Commission who were fired earlier this month by President Donald Trump without a specific cause, are suing Donald Trump and FTC leadership over their oustings. The lawsuit sets up a potential showdown regarding presidential authority as it relates to independent agencies. […]
Trump’s FTC Deletes Blogs Critical of Amazon and Microsoft
For a brief period, maybe even just a second, it seemed as though the populism built into the Donald Trump campaign just might preserve the Lina Khan theory of Big Tech regulation at the Federal Trade Commission. Turns out, not so much. Wired first reported that more than 300 blog posts critical of companies like […]
New FTC Chair Fighting DEI, Cuts Off Public Comments on Surveillance Pricing
While Lina Khan spent much of her four years at the head of the Federal Trade Commission fighting to break up monopolies and combat price gauging, it appears Donald Trump’s new FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has zeroed in on a singular supposed cause for all of the economic problems: DEI. Sitting Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya doesn’t […]