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the petition.

The annoying part is that the petition is redacted. When did this stuff become state secrets? Telling us when AOL will roll out Earthlink will blow the whole multibillion dollar empire? Ughh.

Blockquoth the FTC:

"First, the company billed some consumers for Internet service based upon the date they received their i-openers. These consumers, however, did not owe the company money because, when they ordered their i-openers, the company had promised them that they would not be billed until they actually used the service."

"Second, the company back billed these same consumers for months of Internet service by charging their credit or debit cards without their consent."

"As part of the settlement, the company agreed to refund those consumers for the amounts illegally charged to their accounts."

It appears from my reading that there are two classes of people entitled to refunds:

1) If they said you wouldn't be billed until it phoned home, and it didn't phone home, and you got billed.

2) If you got back-billed for multiple months (IIRC there was a thread where people got hit with multiple months of billing all at once, but I can't verify that.)

Does anyone know how such refunds are to be administered? (i.e. do you have to phone NPLI and ask for them, or should you expect that within a certain timeframe, your credit card will see a pleasant surprise?)

Without getting into the ethics of getting money from a nearly-dead dot-com, if there's an FTC ruling, and the company has agreed to settle on this basis - it seems that people in either category have a right to this money, and they ought to be able to get it if they choose to exercise that right.

Anyone have details on how this sort of thing "usually" works out?

There are exceptions, though, to the notice requirements in Gramm-Leach-Bliley, for fraud prevention and law enforcement and a few other choice purposes. If you're interested, check out Article V of the GLB.

On a related note, look out for the upcoming Financial Services Antifraud Network Act (H.R. 1408) which is currently in the House Committee on Financial Institutions. If passed, any complaints, investigations and other suspicious activity information (even if unsubstantiated), plus background checks and criminal records could be shared by 200 or so "regulators" (including some private entities) in the insurance, banking, and securities industries in the name of fraud prevention.

There's the thing called the 4th amendment.........enforced by the laws of some 'democracy' thing-a-majig, which is taken for granted by people who call restrictions on greed 'communism', but support a system where consumers are forced to have decisions made for them, instead of being allowed to opt-in at their discretion.

The Federal Trade Commision regulates interstate telemarketing. Unsolicited faxes, and calls to pagers and cellular phones, or any number that will mean a charge to the person being called are banned by the FTC, and for intra-state calls by many state legislatures.

The rules for faxes are very clearly opt-in:

• Advertisements for any goods or services cannot be sent to your fax machine without your prior express permission or invitation.
• Permission to send unsolicited faxes is presumed to exist if you have an established business relationship with whomever is sending the message.
• You can end this relationship by telling the company that you do not want to receive any more faxes from them.

• The date and time the transmission is sent;
• The identity of the business, other entity, or individual sending the message; and
• The telephone number of the sender or of the sending fax machine. The telephone number provided may not be a 900 number or any other number for which charges exceed local or long distance telephone charges.

To anyone who feels screwed by this whole Tivo thing: Make sure you fill out the Federal Trade Commission's Online Consumer Complaint Form. Here's the URL: https://rn.ftc.gov/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE= PU01

"At least one FTC advisory opinion has suggested a six-month limit on the use of the word when advertising the introduction of a "new" product not previously on the market."

Second, licensing in the software industry exists for a number of reasons. Again, it is more complicated than songs or movies, and has a high probability of having bugs in it. If you sold software, all sorts of people would cash in their warranties. With licensing, you don't need to make warranties, and you get away with having bugs.

Licensing is not necessary do disclaim all warranties. Most warranties can be disclaimed on tanigble property. Therefore people could only cash in on warranties if they were offered. That said, I don't know of any good reasons for the licensing model. I hope the FTC invalidates them.

Back on the subject of "licensing" CDs and movies, the recording industry tried that back in the late 1920's, if I recall correctly. It was shot down then. Hopefully it will get shot down now.

You're going to have a harder time finding people who will stick up for Napster than people who will stick up for Gnutella or Freenet. It's harder to build a moral case for a venture-capital funded Server-to-Client architecture system that generates a profit by trading corporate music. Freenet, Gnutella, and the like aren't generating a profit for anyone, they're just a grass roots retaliation on the part of the consumer against the documented crimes of price fixing and collusion that the recording labels are committing against the American people.

Peer-to-peer is one thing. Peer to corporation to peer is another.

UCITA has been opposed by:

26 Attorneys General Software developers

Every consumer advocacy organization that has looked at it

Large software customers

Librarians

Other independent information content developers (writers, photographers)

Entertainment industry

Magazine and newspaper publishers

Many law professors.

(end snippet)

Additionally, it has been sharply criticized by the United States' Federal Trade Commission, http://www.ftc.gov/be/v990010.htm.

So many companies against UCITA, yet RedHat would look credible in the eyes of the same pundits attempting to pass the bill. Laymen terms: RedHat thinks they'll join the "paper-based" elite profile of a company like MS, so they turn around and shaft the OpenSource community by sleeping with the enemy. How thoughtful.

More UCITA opposition info

How about a followup story where you untangle all this alphabet soup?

Neither ABCNews nor the Slashdot write-up seem to link to the actual Privacy International site or their 2001 US Big Brother Awards page.

Also, the ABCNews article and Slashdot write-up dwell entirely on the privacy violators, while the original site also mentions that

2 awards were also given to champions of privacy. The Brandeis Award is named after US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who described privacy as "the right to be left alone." The awards are given to those have done exemplary work to protect and champion privacy.

...and awards the Brandeis Award to...

• Evan Hendricks - 20 years of publishing the Privacy Times. Hendricks goes after companies that traffic in children's private data and tells Congress how important privacy is, since they don't seem to get it most of the time.
• Julie Brill - Vermont Attorney General's Office. Brill spearheaded Vermont's litigation against the tobacco companies, and she goes after banks you sell your private data, record companies that fix prices, and drug companies that try to stamp out generics.

These are the good guys (and girls). They deserve some recognition, too.

-M

You're smart; why haven't you learned Python yet? http://diveintopython.org

When UCITA came to my home state, Maryland, I was informed by several consumer/library advocates that lobbyists from Microsoft and AOL were in attendence and vocally in favor of UCITA.

Here is some pro-UCITA propaganda its proponents have put up:

The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA)'s UCITA brief; and here are the SIIA's members.

And my all-time favorite, the Business Software Alliance's Why Software Professionals Should Support [UCITA] (And What Will Happen If They Don't.

The BSA consists of Adobe, Apple, Compaq, Dell, IBM, Intel ... and, of course, Microsoft. Here is a list of member companies.

Additionally, if you want a good "Who's-Who" on UCITA, check out the comments filed at the Federal Trade Commission's recent conference on High-Tech Warranties.

If you're interested, here is a site I threw up concerning UCITA and EULAs. I wrote a letter to Maryland governor Glendening opposing UCITA, and here's the nebulous reply I got back.

Sincerely,

Vergil
Vergil Bushnell

It's not theft, it's copyright infringement, but I'm sure you've ignored this arguement before. And it wouldn't be copyright infringement if we had lawmakers who didn't call the RIAA to ask how they should write laws.

Was it a thief who let me download the tracks that convinced me to buy a CD? What you see as huge theft, seems to me as a simple market correction, or music promotion if you will (because what else are you going to call voluntary distribution without compensation, it can only be called promotion). Massive increases in technology lowered the price of an item, market restrictions inflated that price, the market reacted. You are familiar with the concept of a free market, right? Or do you prefer to have our government define all markets and set all prices? Heck, why not let the industry do it, oh yeah...
--

What companies are counting on is that you will forget you even sent the rebate in. What I do is when I buy something with a rebate on it, I promptly follow all instructions and look at the promised date for fulfillment. I then flip through the rebate tracking calendar I keep on my desk and write down on the promised date what the rebate is for, any contact number for the fulfillment agency and the date I am sending it in.

As I recieve checks in the mail I flip through the calendar and mark out the entry on there. If I reach a date and the entry has not been marked out, I promptly call the company and complain about the rebate. When they give me another promised date I transfer the information from the date I am on to the new promised date and make a note that I have contacted them once.

I follow this procedure until I get a check or if I go through 3 contacts with no check, I usually send off a e-mail to the FTC complaining about the company.

While this process is time consuming, it makes sure you get your money.

We've "known all along" that the challenged DMCA provisions won't survive Supreme Court scrutiny. At least some people at the MPAA and RIAA are at least as smart as we are. So it's safe to assume that they have already begun a fallback plan in case of defeat. And it doesn't take a lot of observation to figure out a major part of it: Shift the arena of conflict from criminal to civil law. That way if you don't do what they want, they can sue your ass for violating a contract that you agreed to.

Here's how they're doing it:
(1) Make shrink-wrap and click-through EULAs enforcable. Anybody remember UCITA? Well how about this: You buy their DVD. By purchasing it you agree to only play it on approved hardware. And you agree not to copy any material from it for any reason. Even after the statutory copyright period expires (goodbye public domain and fair use). Oh yes, and you agree to never loan it or give it to anyone who might do these things. And to be subject to damages if they do so. And let's have no sniveling about rights. You gave up your rights, remember. You agreed.
(2) Get vendors to build in hardware-level limits on what you can do. Hello IBM, Intel, and the NCTIS T.13 Committee! Why, it looks like the proposed CPRM standard! Gee, this is neat: If you can't buy a digital player with a digital output, or you can't buy a hard drive that will store a watermarked music file, problem is solved. And don't think you'll get around this by finding some vendor whose gear doesn't include the restrictions. Because, even if you do, you agreed not to use it (see para.1 above).

And the diabolical thing about all of this is that, once it's in place, all a content-provider has to do is haul you into civil court for violating the EULA. And if they do, you'd better be totally clean, because item one on their list will be a motion for "discovery," which will mean getting a court order to search your home, your office, and especially your computer and its drives for any incriminating material. Due process? Hey, it's a civil case... contract violation. Criminal rules don't apply. And, oh, what if you win, but go bankrupt defending yourself? Well, that's tough... you might sue for malicious prosecution-- oh, that's right, you agreed that you wouldn't...

It's already happening!

COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, is about collecting personally-identifiable information, not aggregate data, so I'm not sure this is a violation. Also keep in mind that COPPA, which is constitutional, should not be confused with the anti-adult material Children's Online Protection Act, or COPA, which was found to be unconstitutional. Jonathan I. Ezor Dir. of Legal Affairs, CyberRebate.com Find out why Library Journal called Jonathan's book CLICKING THROUGH: A Survival Guide for Bringing Your Company Online (Bloomberg Press: 1999) one of "The Best Business Books of 1999"! Click here for free Internet legal news for your Web site or newsletter.

Its just an excuse for big business to get into schools and use filtering software to track kids spending habits. read more about CIPA and COPA here

"I am curious about what the law says they must do if you dispute the claims on the report, and the person who made the claim cannot confirm it."

The law says that they have to delete it. I used to be a credit analyst for a third party credit card processor. If I received a consumer dispute from a credit reporting agency, I would look it up in our system. If because of the age of the account (or lost info due to portfolio transfers, or whatever) I couldn't call the account up in the system, I sent the dispute back to the CRA with the message "Unable to verify - please delete."

Don't take my word for it, though; check out the Fair Credit Reporting Act. http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra.htm#611

That means, you do go out and get a copy of your credit report every year, right? (Depending on which state you live, it might be even free.)

Make sure everything inside of it is what you expect. If not, call them up can fix it. Fix possible problems before they become real ones. You will need to do this before you buy a house, or car, so learn now while everything is still okay.

You won't believe what you see: my wife had credit charges from her mother, just because their names are similar (not even the same!). We had to call up and have these removed.

Additionally, you will see lots of bottom-feeding banks pinging your report for "pre-approved" offers. There were literally hundreds of credit checks by people that had no fucking business looking in there. Thankfully, you can call 1-888-5OPTOUT to stop this insanity. Do it now. They will mail you a form which you need to sign, but do it! Watch your "pre-approved" credit card snailmail spam drop to zero.

The speed of poisoning depends on what poison you use...
I tend to think a spammer with an address database containing root@localhost, postmaster@localhost, abuse@localhost, root@localhost.localdomain, , abuse@localhost.localdomain, root@[127.0.0.1], postmaster@[127.0.0.1], abuse@[127.0.0.1], and uce@ftc.gov wouldn't have too much fun before being kicked by his ISP.

Unfortunately, many spambots are probably intelligent enough to filter out the common variants of these...

I am the Raxis.

Have you read the FTC's complaint against WebTV? http://www.ftc.gov/os/2000/10/webtvcomplaint.htm.. . basically boils down to, "WebTV says the box-top set is great and replaces the need for a computer to get on-line, but WebTV doesn't tell you can't use WebTV to download files or open common email attachments." Oy. It's a lengthy complaint probably costing us several hundred dollars of tax money.

These are well-thought-out and well-written comments on why UCITA is not so good....

You can read the comments here. Most of the comments are in PDF format, many of the comments reflect the Free/Open Source community view of UCITA, among them are, American Association of Law Libraries, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, PHD professors, and of course Richard M Stallman. Perhaps things aren't so bleak after all! Perhaps the FTC will support consumer interest! There would be some embarassed politicians in two states if the FTC ruled against the major provisions of UCITA including the legality of shrink-wrap and click-through licenses, remote recall/disabling of software, liability for individual programeers, NO liability for commercial software developers, etc :-)

COPPA limits companies' ability to gather information on children under 13 without parental consent. Get the consent of a parent, and anything goes.

Sorry 'bout earlier. I misread your post.

Kevin Fox

Hey people....

We have a tendency to criticize quickly and then forget to complement. I think most of us agree that unless competition is protected, the merger should not go through.

I know we squabble about the issues surrounding the periphery, but lets please thank those deserving the credit for doing their job correctly: preserving justice and freedom.

-jerdenn

The slamming happens behind your back. A long distance carrier can have your local carrier switch your long distance carrier on your behalf, supposedly with notification of your consent. Notice that your consent doesn't have to go to your local carrier. However, you can explicitly ask your local carrier to not allow this, instead requiring your consent on any account chages go to the local carrier. BA & Qwest were both very helpful. If your carriers aren't too helpful, it's your right, and responsibility, to report the incident to the FTC. (Gotta love online complaint forms!)

Shortly after my ordeal was over, I moved into a place of my own, abandoned the idea of land-line telephone service, and only use the copper pair for my DSL :)
--
I wrote the play & still own the script ...

Right, you're under no obligation to pay for or return goods you did not order, even if the sender offers to pay return postage, claims you ordered it, sends you nasty (but vague) letters, etc. So don't worry about that "you don't own this thing we sent you unsolicited" crap. IANAL, but the Federal Trade Commision said:

• If you receive supplies or bills for services you didn't order, don't pay, and don't return the unordered merchandise. You may treat unordered merchandise as a gift. By law, it's illegal for a seller to send you bills or dunning notices for unordered merchandise, or ask you to return it -- even if the seller offers to pay for shipping (*).

I gotta get me one of these things, just to take apart and play with...

Right, you're under no obligation to pay for or return goods you did not order, even if the sender offers to pay return postage, claims you ordered it, sends you nasty (but vague) letters, etc. So don't worry about that "you don't own this thing we sent you unsolicited" crap. IANAL, but the Federal Trade Commision said:

• If you receive supplies or bills for services you didn't order, don't pay, and don't return the unordered merchandise. You may treat unordered merchandise as a gift. By law, it's illegal for a seller to send you bills or dunning notices for unordered merchandise, or ask you to return it -- even if the seller offers to pay for shipping (*).

I gotta get me one of these things, just to take apart and play with...

Anyway shouldn't trust a Sainsbury, the food is nice, as is the packaging, but damn who can afford it? (UK only?)

I'm afraid that they're more global than that. They own Star Markets and Shaws Supermarkets, very big in Massachusetts and number two in New England overall. See the FTC's concerns(?)

BTW Sainsbury's are an odd company environmentally. Very bad relatively-speaking (they're a supermarket: centralised distribution, food miles, lots of packaging, ....) but standing out amidst supermarkets (pressurising growers to reduce fertilizer use, codes on wild-harvested ingredients, sustainable timber policy,...).
A paradox? Or do they just know their customers well?

A previous Slashdot article of a few weeks ago encouraged people to submit comments for that proceeding. Some of those comments are online at the FTC site. (The FTC staff tell me all the comments should be up shortly.)

A previous Slashdot article of a few weeks ago encouraged people to submit comments for that proceeding. Some of those comments are online at the FTC site. (The FTC staff tell me all the comments should be up shortly.)

Here's a witch hunt by the government to ban violent games

You can get the FTC report on violence in media from ftc.gov.

First off, the report is not about banning violent games. The report is about corporate responsibility. Specifically it says that the industry markets violent content to children, and that they haven't done enough to give parents information about the violent/sexual/etc content of movies, music and video games. (Some politicians have said that if the industry doesn't clean up its act, they will enact legislation mandating better labeling or something like that.)

I've been watching parts of the hearing on the report on C-SPAN. Interestingly, none of the movie executives invited to attend the hearing managed to show up. They were all overseas or unavailable. Anyway I saw the examination of 2 video game executives and 2 music executives. They made plain in their statements that they believed that they were not intentionally marketing to children, and that the ultimate responsibility for regulating what children see and hear rests with parents. The response to this was that the industry should do a better job of informing the public, through ratings systems and the like. There was no suggestion that censorship or bans be applied, and in any case any attempt to do so would likely be ruled unconstitutional.

In short, the report and the hearing were about corporate accountability for content. Whether or not you think violent content encourages violent behavior, (I don't,) it is important to many parents that they have reliable ratings systems so that they can make informed decisions about what their kids should and should not be exposed to. Additionally, it is hypocritical to rate certain content as inappropriate for children and then market that content to those self-same children. While I don't think that legislation is the means by which these things should be controlled, the industry should and must be responsible for their marketing practices and for producing a reliable and meaningful ratings system.

Use the address above.

Even the Federal Trade Commish claims that uce "is a threat to consumer confidence in online commerce."

If ABC were bound by this it would be in violation, but under exemptions in the document it states:

The following acts or practices are exempt from this Rule:

(c) Telephone calls in which the sale of goods or services is not completed, and payment or authorization of payment is not required, until after a face-to-face sales presentation by the seller;

Since ABC is definitly not selling the callee anything (they're selling viewers to advertisers) I don't belive this applies to their calls.

Also ABC's plan doesn't quite fit the documents definition of telemarketing:

(u) Telemarketing means a plan, program, or campaign which is conducted to induce the purchase of goods or services by use of one or more telephones and which involves more than one interstate telephone call. The term does not include the solicitation of sales through the mailing of a catalog which: contains a written description or illustration of the goods or services offered for sale; includes the business address of the seller; includes multiple pages of written material or illustrations; and has been issued not less frequently than once a year, when the person making the solicitation does not solicit customers by telephone but only receives calls initiated by customers in response to the catalog and during those calls takes orders only without further solicitation. For purposes of the previous sentence, the term "further solicitation" does not include providing the customer with information about, or attempting to sell, any other item included in the same catalog which prompted the customer's call or in a substantially similar catalog.

ABC is not selling anything, and the calls would have to be interstate if ABC were to be bound by this, and just looking at cost ABC would probably set up call centers in the cities in question and get around this.

If there is a federal law that would stop ABC this is not it.

The details are:

(d) Required oral disclosures. It is an abusive telemarketing act or practice and a violation of this Rule for a telemarketer in an outbound telephone call to fail to disclose promptly and in a clear and conspicuous manner to the person receiving the call, the following information: (1) The identity of the seller; ...

Since the ABC telemarketing device (and I believe advertizing television shows still falls under telemarketing acts) will purposily fail to identify itself, I believe this is an attempt on ABC to intentionally conduct an "abusive telemarketing practice."

It just does my heart good see one of my US Government Agencies actually doing something right for its citizens instead bowing to the desires of corporations

I am already drafting my letter of support to send to the FTC. All slashdoters may also do so (though I am sure they really only care about those who are US citizens) by sending a letter to:

Federal Trade Commission

CRC-240

Washington, D.C. 20580

disks, tape, cds... they all have a relatively short lifespan. picture storing data in mice, just feed them and keep them warm. ev en if th e parents die the children will have the artificial chromosomes... (that is unless they recombine, in which case all of your documents or whatever are worthless....)

This is called stealing, and the last time I checked it was against most (all?) major religions, and the laws of most countries.

Well, did you read/hear Courtney Loves rant about the major record labels and how they screw over artists?

Did you read that the Big 5 Music labels settled a case with the FTC basically showing that they were guilty of price fixing?

How about the fact that the Canadian equivalent to the RIAA, the SOCAN, got the Canadian government to institut a blank media levy because they claim all citizens are evil beings who "pirate" music.

Really, if you want to look at this in a religious light, think of Napster as karma, comming back to kick the music industry in the balls.

-- iCEBaLM

As for the commercial services part, I'm not sure if this is true or not. I saw something to that effect on one website about it, but I don't remember seeing it in the full text of the document (located at http://www.ftc.gov/os/1999/9910/64fr598 88.htm). It would make sense, since the main focus of this law seems to be people collecting and selling marketing information about children. However, having this information publically available on a non-commercial service is really just as dangerous to children, since the evil marketing agencies can still gather information that way, and individuals can use it to track down the child as well.

The "RFC" which appeared in the Federal Register did a good job with explaining many issues in context in current law.

For instance, it is illegal to not allow the consumer to see the warranty, before the consumer buys it. In many cases, you can only see the warranty after you purchase the software and click the license agreement.

Maybe thee ftc will actually do something more than giving a waranty on the media only.

Yep, provide more services and get more back, that's definitely a good business model.

Yes, don't allow your distibutors to compete on price, and roll your increasing marketing costs into the price. Sounds like a great business model...too bad it is ILLEGAL.

did it occur to you that retail market, and depending on the country, import/export taxes and middleman fees kick the price up a few notches ?

Now you know how the record co's have been able to keep kicking that price up a few notches and remove the ability of the retailers to lower it. Of course everyone in the supply chain raises the price, duh. The $3 figure I pulled outta my ass, but I think you could make a living selling CDs for five. A buck to make, a buck to ship, a buck to promote and 2 for the artist. Of course, that's in an ideal world with consumers who know what they want (or have a simple means to sample every piece available.......!!!!!). In our world there are stupid enough people that have to pay more than the total price of the object for someone to tell them that they want it, and even stupider people who think this is a good thing.

By their own admission the RIAA has deduced that the marketing is the most valuable part of a CD. I think it should be the music, but then again, I don't make $14billion/yr marketing music.

--

FTC Calls for Privacy Legislation to Protect Internet Users. On May 22, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a report (PDF) on the results of its latest survey of website privacy policies. The survey documented that only 20% of a random sample of websites addressed basic elements of Fair Information Practices. Based on the findings of the survey, a majority of the FTC Commissioners have recommended that legislation is needed. On Thursday, the FTC will formally present its findings and recommendations in front of the Senate Commerce Committee. EPIC's latest survey, "Surfer Beware 3: Privacy Policies without Privacy Protection", also found that self-regulation provided an inadequate level of online privacy protection.

I just hope the EU doesn't fall for the same bait as did TrustE. Self-regulation isn't.

Sreeram.
----------------------------------
Observation is the essence of art.

Here's some info if you'd care to inform yourself: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/05/cdpres.htm

In pointing this out, you make clear that you have failed to understand the morality of the United States. Put a Metallica song on Napster, and you are a "thief."

Steal half a billion through extortionate practices, and you are a "businessman."

I don't particularly justify copyright infringement of Metallica music or RIAA owned "intellectual properties." However, I don't particularly sympathize with a pack of the biggest thugs on the planet, either.

Copyright isn't really the issue. Extortion is more to the point. They have something we want, and they're going to make us pay through the nose for it. Why? Not because the market determined a fair price, but because the biggest corporations got together and decided that they needed to set some limits on the pricing in order to make sure they make more money, and keep making that money. This happens to be illegal. Did they care that they were ripping us off? Nope, and they'll never have to reimburse us either. So, tell me again why we should care when we rip off the record labels?

Here's some info if you'd care to inform yourself: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/05/cdpres.htm .

Here's that link (just used it in another post ) It was three weeks ago, and price-fixing is the correct term.

--

And it's all been refuted before.

*Snore*

"If you don't do it for money, you shouldn't do it."

"Sharing is evil."

"This is about big name stars."

...zzzz....

If you think CD's are too expensive...you agree with the FTC.

Keep the music flowing.

--

>> Besides.. white collar crime, like price fixing of CDs, is much more profitable

> Says who that CDs are being price fixed?

Says the FTC and all five major music distributors? (c.f. FTC Settles With Big CD Makers-Cheaper CDs Coming?)

IANAE (I am not an economist :P) but I think you're applying over-simplified, two-party, supply-demand logic ("enjoyment per dollar" etc.) in support of current cd pricing, esp. given the context of the FTC settlement.