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The Commission has also used its unfairness authority to challenge information practices that cause substantial consumer injury.

I wasn't citing anything specific, hence no citation, but if you must: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video_recorde r. The first one was tested in 1965. Is that prior enough for you?

By your logic, what you've just said is that if the patent office said it was so, then it must be. You are far too trusting.

Did you know that the average patent is researched for about 25 to 30 hours? http://www.ftc.gov/os/comments/intelpropertycommen ts/bartonjohnh.htm That's less than it takes to write the patent application itself. That isn't exactly a recipe for good research.

I believe this one is the official one. I got it from a reference I found on the FTC site . I've done it before, and is about time for another one...but, I think you only get one free one from each credit bureau annually.

While the porn industry certainly uses spam, there are (hard to believe) some companies which run fully confirmed opt-in mailings that outsource because (hard to believe) email done right is not in most company's capabilities.

These 3rd parties are concerned about the abusive use of the do-not-email list, including the following:
1) The only company providing those services (http://www.unspam.com/) is the one lobbying for the laws. We don't seem to appeciate things like Cheney pushing Halliburton; should we accept the same for the do-not-email? Their solution is the very one the FTC suggested was a disaster in the report linked below; should we assume that the states did a deeper investigation of the implementation issues than the multi-year FTC one?
2) The list doesn't solve the very problem it is supposed to handle. That is, it provides an easy way to detect who are kids on the list, and then hammer-mail them with kid-oriented spam. Sure, less porn, but more spam. That seems like a problem to me.
3) Others have mentioned the forgery issues: If you get joejobbed, the current law in MI (and proposed in Utah) doesn't care. You are liable. Too bad.
4) Its a state level law, meaning that its close to impossible to use against international mailers.
5) Legit companies _agree with you_ that spam is bad. However, like many slashdotters, they think dumb laws (like DMCA) i.e. poor implementations, are bad and should be removed. The Mich and Utah laws and approaches are bad ways to solve important problems.

Previous posters are correct about spamgangs and other issues there... but not all direct marketers are spammers. If you are stupid enough to believe that all marketing is bad, etc. etc., feel free to put your name on the current do-not-email http://www.ftc.gov/reports/dneregistry/report.pdf is the link to the FTC's report, which includes many of these ideas expanded.

Its backwards over there and I do wish someone would sue to change this.

• The FTC issued a complaint and ordered AOL to change their practices.
• There were two class-action lawsuits settled in 2004.
• Ohio sued and settled in 2005.
• Finally, most recently, the State of New York sued as well, and the agreement reached with AOL requires AOL to have a third party verify all cancellation calls by the end of this month.

Its backwards over there and I do wish someone would sue to change this.

• The FTC issued a complaint and ordered AOL to change their practices.
• There were two class-action lawsuits settled in 2004.
• Ohio sued and settled in 2005.
• Finally, most recently, the State of New York sued as well, and the agreement reached with AOL requires AOL to have a third party verify all cancellation calls by the end of this month.

The customers needn't have been pissed off, they should have been grateful that the company was sending them gifts. This sort of fraud used to not be that uncommon until laws were passed in the early 1970's that make it illegal to send a bill for unsolicited goods.

The UK and the US both have laws that say that unsolicited goods are gifts and that there is no obligation to pay for them.

Th UK law is called "Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1971". In the US, the law was passed in 1970 and it is in Title 39, United States Code, Section 3009. This specific section of the US Code deals with mail sent via the US Post Office, but I understand that it applies to other delivery methods as well.

http://www.dti.gov.uk/consumers/buying-selling/uns olicited/index.html
http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/merch.h tm
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/products/unord erd.htm

The Standard For Unqualified Made In USA Claims
What is the standard for a product to be called Made in USA without qualification?
For a product to be called Made in USA, or claimed to be of domestic origin without qualifications or limits on the claim, the product must be "all or virtually all" made in the U.S. The term "United States," as referred to in the Enforcement Policy Statement, includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories and possessions.

What does "all or virtually all" mean?
"All or virtually all" means that all significant parts and processing that go into the product must be of U.S. origin. That is, the product should contain no - or negligible - foreign content.

"60% U.S. content." "Made in USA of U.S. and imported parts." "Couch assembled in USA from Italian Leather and Mexican Frame."

Actually, I also prefer NB based on quality, but their Chinese models aren't inherently worse than their USA-built models. I pick from those models because 1) they're the style I'm looking for and 2) they're USA-built.

Yes, Sri Lankan girls will suffer, but Sri Lankan girls will continue to suffer until such time as the average wage improves relative to the rest of us. Only by not playing in the exploitation game are you free from sin. Your argument is akin to the argument against emanicpation of black slaves in the USA - those poor ignorant bastards will starve if we don't give them their gruel!

The only real continuous poverty on this planet is the result of exploitation (by someone else, currently "the west"). The status quo is typically maintained by authoritarian governments acting as puppets for the exploiters (or at least entirely subservient to their interests). Consumerism without regard to socioeconomic consequences is a large force supporting this.

The Honda minivan I drive was made in Alabama ("Made in USA" label is only applicable to products that contain "all, or virtually all" US-produced content). Our older Subaru station wagon, however, was made in Japan.

I'm remembering the early days of eBay. Sure, it costs 2 or 3 times as much to generate new customers, but if you're making 5% margins on those customers or 100% margins on the later ones, it's still 7 - 10 times more profitable to break the last batch of customers. People would do that all the time... build up a positive rating, then fire up a lot of transactions with a lot of people and disappear. 50k will let you retire in Thailand for about 10 years, which is what I assume a lot of these people did.

That's really cool about the FTC being online. I didn't realize it was there already. The first google link is for Filing a complaint. That's pretty awsome.

But again, there are a lot of baseline regulations that need to take place for that to work too. You need public knowledge of board members and employees. You need public knowledge of the company's financing. You need reliable 3rd party metrics. You need a lot of people willing to put a lot of time into doing research... which doesn't come for free. How do you know that when Yahoo says they have filtered out 75% of the sheisters that number is true?

The government shouldn't serve as a heavy-handed guider of the economy, but as a check for the abuses. Theoretically, looking out for the people's interests is what the government is supposed to do. It is an organization of the people, for the betterment of people. Free market companies aren't about the betterment of anything only about making money. Most of the time those interests are aligned, but when they're not, it's the government's role as the embodyment of the will of the people to step and regulate.

You politicians in the back can stop snickering now.

This is not a "resolution," this is the enforcement of a consumer protection law. The FTC has been given the authority to levy fines for those infringing on the various laws they enforce (a complete list of consumer protection statutes enforced by the FTC can be found here: http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/stat3.htm.

The collective ignorance of Slashdot'ers is astounding.

Rambus did not promote their technology at JEDEC and were in fact the only company to have been refused the chance to do so. Taken from the initial decision of an investigation into this matter by the FTC: (Note Gordon Kelly worked at IBM at the time)

824. The chairman of the meeting, Gordon Kelley, testified that prior
to the May 1992 meeting Crisp had spoken to him about the possibility
of Rambus scheduling a presentation concerning DRAM design. (G. Kelley,
Tr. 2553). G. Kelley also testified that he had refused to allow Rambus
to present its technology for standardization at JEDEC on this and
another occasion, even though he had never barred any other member
company tfom presenting its technology. (G. Kelley, Tr. 2649-58).
825. G. Kelley had a clear confict of interest; he made and enforced
his unilateral decision to bar Rambus tfom presenting its technology
two weeks after he wrote in an internal company document that his
company s interests were threatened by the Rambus technology and were
best served if Rambus "fails to become standard." (R 279 at 7). He did
not disclose this confict to Crisp or to anyone else. (G. Kelley, Tr.
2656-57)

Text of Initial Decision of Chief Administrative Law Judge Stephen J. McGuire [Public Version] [PDF 19MB] http://www.ftc.gov/os/adjpro/d9302/040223initialde cision.pdf (19 MB)

Antibacterial soaps are a marketing ploy and nothing more

Bzzt. Wrong.

Many antibacterial soaps contain additives such as triclosan or triclocarbon. Both the AMA and the CDC have recommended against the use of antibacterial soaps vs. regular soaps. The antibacterial soaps themselves don't seem to save you from any cough, colds and flus as at least one study published in Annals of internal medicine shows.

As for just being marketting, manufacturers would be at risk of false advertising, violations of which are the domain of the FTC

These particular antibiotic additives are effective in controlled settings (eg. hospitals) with proper application, but indescriminate use at home doesn't seem provide benefits, and in fact raises concerns about the development of resistant strains of bacteria.

I doubt very much that any network info is adding to your amount of phone calls. One goal of VoIP is that the Internet element is transparent to callers. If the volume of calls has increased, it's a safe bet that your provider is 'providing' your number to some list. Have you registered with the Federal Do Not Call Registry? You should check if your state has one too.

In cases now arising trial courts should bear in mind that in many instances the nature of the patent being enforced and the economic function of the patent holder present considerations quite unlike earlier cases. An industry has developed in which firms use patents not as a basis for producing and selling goods but, instead, primarily for obtaining licensing fees. See FTC, To Promote Innovation: The Proper Balance of Competition and Patent Law and Policy, ch. 3, pp. 38-39 (Oct. 2003), available at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/10/innovationrpt.pdf (as visited May 11, 2006, and available in Clerk of Court's case file). For these firms, an injunction, and the potentially serious sanctions arising from its violation, can be employed as a bargaining tool to charge exorbitant fees to companies that seek to buy licenses to practice the patent. See ibid. When the patented invention is but a small component of the product the companies seek to produce and the threat of an injunction is employed simply for undue leverage in negotiations, legal damages may well be sufficient to compensate for the infringement and an injunction may not serve the public interest. In addition injunctive relief may have different consequences for the burgeoning number of patents over business methods, which were not of much economic and legal significance in earlier times. The potential vagueness and suspect validity of some of these patents may affect the calculus under the four-factor test.

According to well-established principles of equity, a plaintiff seeking a permanent injunction must satisfy a four-factor test before a court may grant such relief. A plaintiff must demonstrate: (1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury; (2) that remedies available at law, such as monetary damages, are inadequate to compensate for that injury; (3) that, considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted; and (4) that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction.

Just as the District Court erred in its categorical denial of injunctive relief, the Court of Appeals erred in its categorical grant of such relief.

[S]ome patent holders, such as university researchers or self-made inventors, might reasonably prefer to license their patents, rather than undertake efforts to secure the financing necessary to bring their works to market themselves. Such patent holders may be able to satisfy the traditional four-factor test, and we see no basis for categorically denying them the opportunity to do so.

An industry has developed in which firms use patents not as a basis for producing and selling goods but, instead, primarily for obtaining licensing fees. See FTC, To Promote Innovation: The Proper Balance of Competition and Patent Law and Policy, ch. 3, pp. 38-39 (Oct. 2003), available at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/10/innovationrpt.pdf (as visited May 11, 2006, and available in Clerk of Court's case file). For these firms, an injunction, and the potentially serious sanctions arising from its violation, can be employed as a bargaining tool to charge exorbitant fees to companies that seek to buy licenses to practice the patent. See ibid. When the patented invention is but a small component of the product the companies seek to produce and the threat of an injunction is employed simply for undue leverage in negotiations, legal damages may well be sufficient to compensate for the infringement and an injunction may not serve the public interest. In addition injunctive relief may have different consequences for the burgeoning number of patents over business methods, which were not of much economic and legal significance in earlier times. The potential vagueness and suspect validity of some of these patents may affect the calculus under the four-factor test.The equitable discretion over injunctions, granted by the Patent Act, is well suited to allow courts to adapt to the rapid technological and legal developments in the patent system. For these reasons it should be recognized that district courts must determine whether past practice fits the circumstances of the cases before them.

Bundling is NOT an anti-trust violation. There is nothing illegal about having an advantage. The illegality comes when you use your monopoly to threaten others if they do not play by your rules.

But hey, I could be wrong. The law is a complicated thing that changes everyday. But, if it is such a "clear case of anti-trust law violation," you should have absolutely no trouble finding the statute. For instance, here is the statute I was refering to in my post: Sale, etc., on agreement not to use goods of competitor. I'll even give you a starting point: Bureau of Competition

They just don't care because the current system minimizes their financial losses by transfering those losses to the individual who has his/her identity "stolen".

While credit card fraud is not the only cause of finanical loss in cases of identity theft, it's certainly one of the biggest. That cost is, by my understanding, borne by the credit card companies, who pass it along to credit card users generally in the form of absurdly high interest rates. It's still a case where fixing the system would hurt revenue (in the short term, at least), but that's because credit cards are, to most people, such an important means of doing business that the interest rates are still not high enough to deter them.

In the case of debit cards, however, the cost is borne by the defrauded customer directly. Debit cards should, in theory, be more secure, as they have an associated private key; however the demand to have them function in the same capacity as credit cards has resulted in a situation where you don't need the PIN for many transactions, and you don't have the protection of a $50 liability cap either.

if you haven't done so already, i highly suggest using the optout program to stop receiving CC offers https://www.optoutprescreen.com/

I did this a year ago and i get no CC offers in the mail AT ALL. it is a great program. it is also 100% legit FTC Gov't Site Explaining Program

When somebody sends you a credit card offer, send it back to them, writing "Take me off your list".

Yes, the link is here . I thought it was a scam at first but this page from the FTC links to them. Both my fiance and I have taken advantage of this and it works like a charm.

Worse yet. From the FTC report. The spammers made $2.4M but the fine is only $475,000. So they not only are still in business, but still profitable. The government just wanted to make sure that if people are being harassed, that they are in on it.

• Although I never did - I have always been able to use your information with your signature.
• GLB didn't make your information "more secure" it allowed your bank to give your information to a "related" brokerage firm.
• This will not make your information more (or less) secure either.

Once again, the media has overstated a story to attract attention to a non-issue. Regardless of what the IRS decides to do about tax preparers sharing tax information, this practice is already regulated by another law: the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act(GLBA).

GLBA was passed in 1999 to modernize aspects of the banking industry. Title V prevents financial institutions from selling consumer data without consent from the consumer. Remember a couple of years ago every bank, credit card company, loan agency, and anyone else who touched your money flooded your mailbox with Privacy Policy notices and "opt-out" statements? That was GLBA.

The best part is that GLBA classifies tax preparers as financial institutions , so H&R Block must provide the same protections to your information that a bank would (or should).

The proposed IRS rule change under section 1 specifically cites GLBA and points out that this rule change has no impact on the GLBA requirements.

Sorry to all you privacy alarmists out there, but this "Privacy Bomb" for the IRS is a dud.

Once again, the media has overstated a story to attract attention to a non-issue. Regardless of what the IRS decides to do about tax preparers sharing tax information, this practice is already regulated by another law: the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act(GLBA).

GLBA was passed in 1999 to modernize aspects of the banking industry. Title V prevents financial institutions from selling consumer data without consent from the consumer. Remember a couple of years ago every bank, credit card company, loan agency, and anyone else who touched your money flooded your mailbox with Privacy Policy notices and "opt-out" statements? That was GLBA.

The best part is that GLBA classifies tax preparers as financial institutions , so H&R Block must provide the same protections to your information that a bank would (or should).

The proposed IRS rule change under section 1 specifically cites GLBA and points out that this rule change has no impact on the GLBA requirements.

Sorry to all you privacy alarmists out there, but this "Privacy Bomb" for the IRS is a dud.

MCI decided years ago I owe them money, I don't, and every two years some collection agency comes calling.

You know what, I think ScuttleMonkey owes me $5,000. I just decided that. Now, I'm going to hire a collection agency to collect it. They get to keep 20%, of course. Sounds like a plan to me. Especially if ScuttleMonkey doesn't stop me.

PLEASE tell me you will follow up on this. There should be a required class for High School students that teaches them stuff they will ALL need.... Like protecting yourself from large companies making false claims.

http://ikonetics.com/creditletters/
Here are some easy to use letters that will force Collection Agencies/ MCI to PROVE you owe them. Plus, it offers a simple Cease-Desist so they cannot harass you.

http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra.htm
FCRA /Fair Credit Reporting Act. You should be very familiar with this document when you start cleaning your credit. Companies cannot do whatever they want with your report. Some actions REQUIRE they pay you for damages. Small claims court is your friend.

http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpa/fdcpact.htm
FDCPA /Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. A must read if you have derogatory items on your credit report.

PLEASE PLEASE take action to protect yourself from these collectors. The more people that stand up for themselves, the harder it gets for the slimey businesses out there.

MCI decided years ago I owe them money, I don't, and every two years some collection agency comes calling.

You know what, I think ScuttleMonkey owes me $5,000. I just decided that. Now, I'm going to hire a collection agency to collect it. They get to keep 20%, of course. Sounds like a plan to me. Especially if ScuttleMonkey doesn't stop me.

PLEASE tell me you will follow up on this. There should be a required class for High School students that teaches them stuff they will ALL need.... Like protecting yourself from large companies making false claims.

http://ikonetics.com/creditletters/
Here are some easy to use letters that will force Collection Agencies/ MCI to PROVE you owe them. Plus, it offers a simple Cease-Desist so they cannot harass you.

http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra.htm
FCRA /Fair Credit Reporting Act. You should be very familiar with this document when you start cleaning your credit. Companies cannot do whatever they want with your report. Some actions REQUIRE they pay you for damages. Small claims court is your friend.

http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpa/fdcpact.htm
FDCPA /Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. A must read if you have derogatory items on your credit report.

PLEASE PLEASE take action to protect yourself from these collectors. The more people that stand up for themselves, the harder it gets for the slimey businesses out there.

For those concerned about the site (https://www.optoutprescreen.com/ the FTC links right to them: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/prescre en.htm

The FTC has a good list of where to go to opt-out of pre-approved credit offers as well as direct marketers. The 888 number you gave is still valid, as is optoutprescreen, mentioned elsewhere in the comments here.

from the FTC website:

"The credit bureaus offer a toll-free number that enables you to "opt-out" of having pre-approved credit offers sent to you for two years. Call 1-888-5-OPTOUT (567-8688) for more information. When you call, you'll be asked for personal information, including your home telephone number, your name and your Social Security number. The information you provide is confidential and will be used only to process your request to opt out of receiving pre-screened offers of credit."

Who runs 1-888-5-OPTOUT? I sure as heck don't want to give my SSN and telephone number to anyone just because the FTC says so!

From the http://www.ftc.gov/ websight: "1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688) or visit http://www.optoutprescreen.com/ for details" This will prevent companies from pre-approving you for credit stuff. Cut down my mail by half.

The FTC has an alert that gives you a few options, including the phone # to call for opting out.

For folks in the US: To opt out of receiving offers of credit in the mail, call: 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688). http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/idtheft .htm#Minimizing/

Where is the line to start the fight?

Fax or Call your Congressional Representatives.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cdirectory/index.html

Drop these guys a line.

http://ftc.gov/

If you are intelligent and well spoken... call your local news and make a case for this being a bad idea.

Or, if you want to be an ineffective lump, go ahead and sit back and shut up... If you're going to complain, for god's sake aim your mouth in the right direction.

I challenge every voting Slashdot reader to actually do something about this one and send a fax in tomorrow. E-mail can be filtered and ignored, but choking the phone lines that serve them will serve as an ironic way of showing how unhappy we are with the prospect of this merger.

I am a customer of these organizations and I want this stopped in it's tracks.

"Balderdash and piffle," replies Jennings. "Nothing's really changed."

First: piffle means balderdash, doesn't it? What a bunch of tomfoolery and flimflam.

Second: sorry Jennings, something has changed. The FTC's CAN-SPAM law, debated though they may be, allow that unsolicited e-mail can be sent LEGITIMATELY under certain strict guidelines. AOL's e-mail "tax" will potentially damage the ability of legitimate law-abiding businesses to legally market their products.

Third: what is AOL's definition of spam? What does this mean for nonprofits who legitimately send mass e-mails? What about politicians who spam -- will AOL let that through, or not?

Agreed, I'm not sure whether the editors are deliberately letting such things slip through, but it's getting to the point where simply finding TFA to read it requires guessing right. Maybe we need to require people submitting articles to disclose whether they are being compensated directly or indirectly via ad revenue.

At least in some places of the world, that's required by law:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/rulero ad.htm
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/endorse.htm

"255.5 Disclosure of material connections.

When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed."

In case the relevance isn't clear, when you recommend that people read an article on a site that you own and are making money from (putting up ad banners where people can buy things obviously qualifies), you need to disclose that fact and specificly whether the subject of the article is paying anything for your referral.

Would any Newsforge editor care to speak to this matter?

Agreed, I'm not sure whether the editors are deliberately letting such things slip through, but it's getting to the point where simply finding TFA to read it requires guessing right. Maybe we need to require people submitting articles to disclose whether they are being compensated directly or indirectly via ad revenue.

At least in some places of the world, that's required by law:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/rulero ad.htm
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/endorse.htm

"255.5 Disclosure of material connections.

When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed."

In case the relevance isn't clear, when you recommend that people read an article on a site that you own and are making money from (putting up ad banners where people can buy things obviously qualifies), you need to disclose that fact and specificly whether the subject of the article is paying anything for your referral.

Would any Newsforge editor care to speak to this matter?

I talked with meng wong at ISPcon few weeks before he publicly came out with SPF. I was proposing a system I call Choicelist (PDF)which is basically a centrally controlled, default deny, public whitelist management system.

At that same time I proposed a way to stop phishers to a man from the FTC,Brian Huseman.

This is how it goes:
1. When a buissiness gets a buisiness licence they also recieve a cryptographicaly signed certificate to be used in online commerce.

That's it!

Certificate authoritys like verisign and thawte are crap. That role should be filled by a government agency for the public good.

It is bait and switch. They're told the "console-only" packages have sold out, but the bundles are available. They bait with the console-only, and attempt to switch to a higher-priced package when the consumer comes in.

And yes, it is illegal (at least in most states... I don't know if it's federal). The FTC has guides against it, and Best Buy violated a good number of them.

However, there are "CYA" wordings that most places use, although Best Buy might not have. Usually they'll say "stock limited to quantity on hand" or "limited quantity available". However, some of those memos specifically say "keep 3 or 4 on hand" which is definitely illegal in most states, as it clearly does not have enough to satisfy demand.

• (b) Even though the true facts are subsequently made known to the buyer, the law is violated if the first contact or interview is secured by deception.
  

Case law would seem to be in your corner, then. Dell got slapped down in 1995 for trying to enforce a patent after getting the VESA standard approved (as part of the VESA organization). Here's a link: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/1995/11/dell.htm.

So basically, companies can't push for widespread adoption of their technology and then swing a patent hammer afterwards.

If the FTC gathers evidence of a crime, it can - and does - launch prosecutions. Last month two companies were ordered to hand back more than $2m (£1.14m) garnered through selling fake anti-spyware products.

I misremembered, or I'm remembering a different year: From the FTC for 2003:

Movie Theater Ticket 36%
Movie on DVD 81%
Music Recording 83%
Electronic Game 69%

Games are kicking the butt of DVDs and Music, so why are enforcement of game ratings the issue?

Now, if they fail to deliver the product EVER, that's a crime.

Technically, for mail order at least, they have 30 days to ship from the time they take your payment unless they specifically tell you otherwise in advance. This is the FTC's "Mail or Telephone Order Merchandise Trade Regulation Rule" and it's a pretty big deal for mail order companies to follow.

"The Rule requires that when you advertise merchandise, you must have a reasonable basis for stating or implying that you can ship within a certain time. If you make no shipment statement, you must have a reasonable basis for believing that you can ship within 30 days."

Basically if you fail to ship in 30 days you have to obtain the customer's explicit consent to keep their money until you can ship or you must refund their payment.

I don't see in TFA any details about actually making a pre-order so I don't know what they promise in this case, although they say "Keyboards ready for shipment will arrive on May 15" but that doesn't mean they'll have enough to actually fulfill all pre-orders.

What kind of 'they can't charge your card until product ships' crap are you spewing.

According to this FTC article, "Many credit card issuers have policies against merchants charging a credit card account before shipment" and "By law, a merchant should ship your order within the time stated in its ads or over the phone. If the merchant doesn't promise a time, you can expect it to ship your order within 30 days."

Insightful? You gotta be kidding!

I have been a corporate security professional for over 10 years, and the only people that I ever get whines from like the parent are typically engineers or IT people who either believe that a) they are God's gift to computers and/or b) the rules don't apply to them. I may seem a bit pissy here, but it just burns me to read posts like this from people who clearly have never tried to think about security from the perspective of the business protecting its assets.

Contrary to what most people seem to think, companies do not exist for the convience of the employees. It is the other way around. Employees have jobs to do what the company tells them to. If the policies at your company don't allow for any way for you to do your job, talk to management. More than likely, either an alternative solution exists, or the business function you're trying to do hasn't come up before and security will have to figure out how to incorporate it. If the problem is that the official method of doing your job isn't as convenient, as cool, or as uber as what you'd like to do, then either get over it or get a different job. Corporate policies and standards are put in place to homogenize the environment, ease support, and maintain regulatory compliance. They are not put in place, at least in my company, to inconvenience employees. In fact, the point behind security efforts in my environment is to enable the business to do everything they need to do, but in a manner that doesn't put the company at risk. Some times, this means that one business unit will have to accept a less-than-optimal solution because of more pressing issues at another, but we haven't been faced yet with a situation where there's been no way to safely do a valid business function.

In large corporations, in particular, security decisions are frequently a balance between the needs of very different business units. For example, a unit that provides credit functions to customers in the US is regulated by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, but a manufacturing unit in the same corporation wouldn't be normally. GLBA may apply to both, however, unless there is some system in place to prevent mistakes at the manufacturing unit from affecting the credit unit. So, while encrypted, authenticated wireless access may not be convenient for an engineer at the manufacturing unit, without internal firewalls to segment security zones, encrypted, authenticated wireless is the only option.

Don't get me wrong, we do things I don't agree with. Proxy blocking, for example, seems pointless to me. Surfing porn from a company system is not a technical issue, it is an HR issue. Have a policy that states what is acceptable, give one warning per user, then fire their ass. Believe me, Internet usage reports get much cleaner when someone at a site has been fired recently, regardless of what the proxy is blocking.

Oh, yeah. The so-called draconian policies we have in place have created an environment where a really, really bad virus outbreak is 2-3 machines worldwide. Before we went down this path, there were worms that affected thousands of systems all around the world. We also have a very, very low incidence of harassment issues, we have five-nines uptime on our production systems, we've never had to completely sever our Internet connections to deal with security threats, and we've managed to balance security and business function well enough that end-users rarely have to contact the help desk because a security measure is preventing them from doing their job. Things may not work this well at other companies, but whinging on /. isn't likely to change that anyway.

The Financial Modernization Act of 1999, also known as the "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act" or GLB Act, includes provisions to protect consumers' personal financial information held by financial institutions. There are three principal parts to the privacy requirements: the Financial Privacy Rule, Safeguards Rule and pretexting provisions.

The GLB Act gives authority to eight federal agencies and the states to administer and enforce the Financial Privacy Rule and the Safeguards Rule. These two regulations apply to "financial institutions," which include not only banks, securities firms, and insurance companies, but also companies providing many other types of financial products and services to consumers. Among these services are lending, brokering or servicing any type of consumer loan, transferring or safeguarding money, preparing individual tax returns, providing financial advice or credit counseling, providing residential real estate settlement services, collecting consumer debts and an array of other activities. Such non-traditional "financial institutions" are regulated by the FTC. ...

Antitrust law still applies when companies fix prices during a joint ventures. Warner and some other labels had a joint venture to make a Three Tenors album. They fixed prices and got busted. The FTC later said that all price-fixing with relation to a joint venture will get the per se illegality treatment, which means no excuses. The parties can only set the prices of the new products of their joint ventures, and only when it is necessary to the success of the venture. (Firms cannot dump all their assets to the joint venture and then fix prices, because that's against Section 7 of the Clayton Act regarding mergers tending to lessen competition.) American antitrust law applies to activities in other countries that significantly affect American commerce. While the government may not want to bring an action against American firms, that reticense sure does not apply to foreign firms.

Warner, a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner Inc., is based in New York. The other firms charged in the complaint are subsidiaries of Vivendi Universal S.A., a French corporation. Vivendi Universal is the successor corporation to PolyGram following a December 2000 merger.

Anyone read Google here?

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/07/tenors.htm