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Okay, your not helping yourself or anyone else like you think you are. I'm not writing this response for you personally, I'm writing it before other people follow your advice and get themselves in legal trouble.

You have rights if your a fraud victim and you should exercise them, which you haven't done. In order to protect yourself and your credit rating you have to file a fraud complaint and send it to the and credit agency and company.

If you don't do that the company can continue to report against your credit report and you can be sued by the company in the jurisdiction that they have on file and get a judgment against you. Without a fraud dispute the company has no way of knowing your right address and the fraudulent address will be used for the jurisdiction you are sued under. Once a judgment is issued against someone you can have your wages garnished, credit ruined, tax refunds seized and property sold at auction.

You'll have hell to get an judgment overturned that was issued in another jurisdiction and than your in a position of explaining why you couldn't be bothered to write a simple affidavit and mail it in. Someone following your advice could well get a judgment against them that they couldn't get rid of - even after proving they didn't take it out. With a lot of jurisdictions allowing people to be arrested in order to enforce payment of judgments your advice could well put someone in jail.

* Before I worked in IT I made a living performing large balance credit card fraud investigations ($5000+). I was the one of two people in a well known company that would track down situations like yours. Please stop giving legal advice when you haven't got the slightest clue what your talking about.

Okay, your not helping yourself or anyone else like you think you are. I'm not writing this response for you personally, I'm writing it before other people follow your advice and get themselves in legal trouble.

You have rights if your a fraud victim and you should exercise them, which you haven't done. In order to protect yourself and your credit rating you have to file a fraud complaint and send it to the and credit agency and company.

If you don't do that the company can continue to report against your credit report and you can be sued by the company in the jurisdiction that they have on file and get a judgment against you. Without a fraud dispute the company has no way of knowing your right address and the fraudulent address will be used for the jurisdiction you are sued under. Once a judgment is issued against someone you can have your wages garnished, credit ruined, tax refunds seized and property sold at auction.

You'll have hell to get an judgment overturned that was issued in another jurisdiction and than your in a position of explaining why you couldn't be bothered to write a simple affidavit and mail it in. Someone following your advice could well get a judgment against them that they couldn't get rid of - even after proving they didn't take it out. With a lot of jurisdictions allowing people to be arrested in order to enforce payment of judgments your advice could well put someone in jail.

* Before I worked in IT I made a living performing large balance credit card fraud investigations ($5000+). I was the one of two people in a well known company that would track down situations like yours. Please stop giving legal advice when you haven't got the slightest clue what your talking about.

Okay, your not helping yourself or anyone else like you think you are. I'm not writing this response for you personally, I'm writing it before other people follow your advice and get themselves in legal trouble.

You have rights if your a fraud victim and you should exercise them, which you haven't done. In order to protect yourself and your credit rating you have to file a fraud complaint and send it to the and credit agency and company.

If you don't do that the company can continue to report against your credit report and you can be sued by the company in the jurisdiction that they have on file and get a judgment against you. Without a fraud dispute the company has no way of knowing your right address and the fraudulent address will be used for the jurisdiction you are sued under. Once a judgment is issued against someone you can have your wages garnished, credit ruined, tax refunds seized and property sold at auction.

You'll have hell to get an judgment overturned that was issued in another jurisdiction and than your in a position of explaining why you couldn't be bothered to write a simple affidavit and mail it in. Someone following your advice could well get a judgment against them that they couldn't get rid of - even after proving they didn't take it out. With a lot of jurisdictions allowing people to be arrested in order to enforce payment of judgments your advice could well put someone in jail.

* Before I worked in IT I made a living performing large balance credit card fraud investigations ($5000+). I was the one of two people in a well known company that would track down situations like yours. Please stop giving legal advice when you haven't got the slightest clue what your talking about.

Okay, your not helping yourself or anyone else like you think you are. I'm not writing this response for you personally, I'm writing it before other people follow your advice and get themselves in legal trouble.

You have rights if your a fraud victim and you should exercise them, which you haven't done. In order to protect yourself and your credit rating you have to file a fraud complaint and send it to the and credit agency and company.

If you don't do that the company can continue to report against your credit report and you can be sued by the company in the jurisdiction that they have on file and get a judgment against you. Without a fraud dispute the company has no way of knowing your right address and the fraudulent address will be used for the jurisdiction you are sued under. Once a judgment is issued against someone you can have your wages garnished, credit ruined, tax refunds seized and property sold at auction.

You'll have hell to get an judgment overturned that was issued in another jurisdiction and than your in a position of explaining why you couldn't be bothered to write a simple affidavit and mail it in. Someone following your advice could well get a judgment against them that they couldn't get rid of - even after proving they didn't take it out. With a lot of jurisdictions allowing people to be arrested in order to enforce payment of judgments your advice could well put someone in jail.

* Before I worked in IT I made a living performing large balance credit card fraud investigations ($5000+). I was the one of two people in a well known company that would track down situations like yours. Please stop giving legal advice when you haven't got the slightest clue what your talking about.

There is an official website that does that now. See the FTC page on it.

However, this does not detract from the fact that it is all a scam.

Many jurisdictions actually have laws against such deceptive pricing practices, with varying requirements to be met.

The point of a discount is to be the tie-breaking factor in whether or not to buy a product of a particular brand. The seller loses some profit, perhaps even all profit, but gains a sale and may even make his competitor lose one. It can provide an opportunity to prove that one product is as good or better than an alternative, thus winning market share.

It is important to remember your own intent at all times. If you plan on buying a Brand X widget, a discount on Brand Y widgets don't matter, but a discount on Brand X only helps you. If, however, you were shopping for a widget with no brand loyalty, the discount may be enough to redirect your dollars, with both you and the discounted brand benefiting. The only way you lose with a discount is if, as you pointed out, you buy more than you otherwise would have. That's a bad idea regardless of discounts.

Check out http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/sitemap.shtm and let me know if it's been powered down. ;)

They are up and running. From what I saw at http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/sitemap.shtm, the whole site is still there, just on a global redirect to the "no one home" page.

If anything, I suspect this makes 'em more attractive targets cuz it may be a while before anyone notices if they get hacked.

The reason article mentions a link..

http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/sitemap.shtm

This goes to the obvious sitemap.

Which works fine for a few seconds, until it magically redirects to the "no one home" notice.

And $50k would put it at the meat of the pack of cars from all but the discount lines. $50k isn't a lot of money for a car in 2013.

The average new car price in the US is about $30,000.

Considering you're talking about a price that's over 1.6 times that of the average, I think it's pretty damn fair to say that $50K is quite a bit for a car in 2013. It's not "very expensive" or "outrageously expensive", but you are well above what most people are buying.

"They called me at work, sometimes two to three times a day, doing all the stuff they aren't supposed to do: threats, et cetera," says 41-year-old Shawn FitzGerald, who owes $300 a month and says he expects to be paying off education loans into his sixties. "They told the receptionist at my job that I was in legal trouble...."

"I have been told I made the wrong decision going to college, as well as being told I was a failure, an idiot and a mooch," says Larissa, a young woman from a blue-collar town outside Chicago. "I've had ex-boyfriends that I never even lived with contacted by collection agents, my childhood friend's distant relatives contacted by them, as well as distant relatives of my own...."

See here:

Fair Debt Collections Practices Act.

When a collector breaks the law, seek legal representation. Yes, people have sued collectors and won for this kind of abusive behavior.

"Made in the USA" does carry a specific legal meaning and is different than "Assembled in the USA"

http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard

http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0219-fair-credit-billing here is the link for the laws being violated in your instance.

I came to a different conclusion(spin) to the summary presented by the New York Times; this is not about protecting "software designers, smartphone makers and the like" (and definitely not in the case of Microsoft, Apple and Nokia who are both PAE as described in the article and form have created mega patent pools with each other).

This is about those same companies (Microsoft, Apple and Nokia) attacking start-up companies; stillborning competition; competition within the IT industry or as the linked article describes outside the industry for simply purchasing consumer products...or building a web page(the example is one that includes a calorie counter). Ballmer threatening Linux users...like that.

I find it depressing that Intellectual Ventures are being scapegoated...when as I see it the worst offenders of the computing Industry(with their own PAE) are portrayed as Victims when they are the worst offenders, and is not the thrust what Edith Ramirez says http://ftc.gov/speeches/ramirez/130620paespeech.pdf

Pro-tip: You can stop saying "for allegedly violating" and start saying "for violating" when the guilty verdict is handed down.

What guilty verdict?

http://www2.ftc.gov/os/caselist/10223084/130627mortgageinvestorsstip.pdf

STIPULATED FINAL ORDER FOR PERMANENT INJUNCTION AND CIVIL PENALTY JUDGMENT
[...]
Findings
[...]

  3. Defendant neither admits nor denies any of the allegations in the Complaint, except as specifically stated in this Order. Only for purposes of this action, Defendant admits the facts necessary to establish jurisdiction.

Another settlement with no admission of guilt.

The difference is, there is no evidence Amazon was telling the publishers they couldn't sell their books cheaper elsewhere - that's the crux of the issue with the way Apple was doing it here.

Yeah, absolutely no evidence

Both Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) and Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) have agreements with those publishers that ensure they'll receive the best prices for e-books over any of their competitors, Blumenthal said in a prepared statement.

Nobody ever saw Amazon do it

An agency model combined with most-favored-nation clauses were implemented by Apple and Amazon for e-book sales
Similar models used in other markets

And Amazon most certainly doesn't have anything called "most favored nation clause" in any of their terms, only something called "price matching". https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help/search?query=price%2520matching&page=1 - it's their most favored clause in the nation.

The rules say that "Payment is paid out through a verified PayPal account, once the bug is fixed." It's not required to have a PayPal account to win. That's just the payment mechanism eBay prefers. Once someone has won, PayPal owes them money. PayPal is a debtor here.

Debtors do not. in general, get to require that their creditor jump through hoops to get paid. Whether eBay is entitled to require payment via their own system is a legal issue which eBay would probably lose. Any collection lawyer or collection agency should be able to take this case and win.

On top of that, this is a "contest", and in the US, contests are regulated by the FTC's Contest Rule. Federal law limits what a contest operator can require after they've told someone they've "won".

FTC has been doing secret shopper tests on volutary rating systems. R rated movies, M rated games, Parental Advisory Music. Game stores have the best record. Their record has also improve dramatically in the last 10 years. In 2002 90% of the children secret shoppers could buy M rated games. Now it varies between 8%(gamestop) to 22%(walmart) http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2013/03/mysteryshop.shtm

This is the letter I sent to my elected officials. Each sent me a form letter back in response on their views on the 2nd amendment that made it clear none of them read my letter.

--------

As a parent, I found the events in Sandy Hook Elementary truly frightening. As a society, we should look for solutions to prevent gun violence. However, the discussion I'm seeing in Washington D.C. pointing back repeatedly to video games is not only off the mark, but it is harmful. When we point the finger in the wrong direction, we obfuscate the real issues, preventing them from being addressed. And we punish unfairly.

No one has ever found a link video games and aggression beyond vague correlations that don't stand up to basic logic and reasoning.

Violent crime has actually decreased since 1994 while video games are being played more. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/viortrdtab.cfm

Juvenile crime is actually at a 30-year low.

72% of Americans play video games. There does not appear to be any clear correlation to violent behavior.

Violent video games are just as popular, if not more-so in countries like Japan, Germany, Canada, England, etc. without any correlation of violent behavior.

The talking point that video games give people the courage to commit crimes they wouldn't otherwise could be applied just the same to music, books, movies and television shows. It is flawed logic to begin with, but video games should be viewed the same way as these other mediums. They are self-regulated with ratings to allow parents to make informed decisions about what games/shows/movies, etc. are appropriate for their children.

I served in the Marine Corps. Playing Halo is not the equivalent of military training and I find it laughable that people make such claims.

In the immediate aftermath of the Columbine school shooting, President Clinton and his wife were both quick to blame video games. Hillary Clinton made it a core issue of her tenure in New York, trying repeatedly to pass federal legislation to criminalize the sale of violent video games to kids (a problem that doesn't exist given that each study has shown most retailers will not sell M rated titles to children - http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/05/secretshop.shtm). If they had instead focused immediately on the actual issues, perhaps we wouldn't have had as many school shootings since then.

The more time that we waste in Washington D.C. blaming the wrong parties, the more we perpetuate the actual issues. Doing so is disrespectful and a disservice to those who have lost loved ones to such violence.

I am hoping that we can count on you as a leader to steer the discussion to where it needs to go (responsible gun control, mental health advocacy, reasonable security measures).

See item #19 here:
http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/coppafaqs.shtm

If you want to opt-out of direct mailing, not only do you have to give them your personal information, they charge $1 for it! The actual site: https://www.dmachoice.org/

Actually, I think my example is spot on.

If the firmware is so risky that "Any time you install a new firmware you are rolling the dice", maybe the manufacturer should re-think the hardware / solution they are providing. Upgrade of the firmware should NEVER... NEVER... NEVER be risky.

Great customer support: on day "warranty expire +1", you are on your own. They have my business (NOT).

Also, tell that to FTC. They have NO problem going after companies whose warranties have long since expired.

Sure. Unfortunately, if you are in the business of supporting something that is critical, you can either argue that you are right, and how life is unfair. Or, you can plan for failure, and not have to tell everyone that was counting on your product/whatever that everything is going to be down until does the right thing. It may not be good customer service, but you must understand that the world and most of the businesses out there don't give a shit if you sink or swim. Go ahead and file a suit against them in court if you are so obligated, but your take away should more than just hoping that some government body (FTC) makes everything all better years down the road.

If the firmware is so risky that "Any time you install a new firmware you are rolling the dice", maybe the manufacturer should re-think the hardware / solution they are providing. Upgrade of the firmware should NEVER... NEVER... NEVER be risky.

Great customer support: on day "warranty expire +1", you are on your own. They have my business (NOT).

Also, tell that to FTC. They have NO problem going after companies whose warranties have long since expired.

I did http://www.optoutprescreen.com/ and it stopped the majority of the most annoying junk mail. The kind that might let someone start a credit card in my name if they intercept it....

More options are here: http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-mail-phone-calls-and-email

I have yet to try dmachoice, has anyone tried it?

There is no way in hell I'm supplying a social security number online to some unknown entity.

I did http://www.optoutprescreen.com/ and it stopped the majority of the most annoying junk mail. The kind that might let someone start a credit card in my name if they intercept it....

More options are here: http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-mail-phone-calls-and-email

I have yet to try dmachoice, has anyone tried it?

And worse, with PIN transactions, the account holder assumes the risk of fraud, which is large, and the fault of banks creating a ridiculous transaction system based on a set of "secret" numbers (printed on the card).

http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0213-lost-or-stolen-credit-atm-and-debit-cards disagrees with you on the amount of fraud liability on debit cards. Most telling is this statement: "For unauthorized transactions involving only your debit card number (but not the loss of your card), you have 60 days after you get your statement to report the unauthorized transaction."

The credit card fraud protections are similar. I realize that debit cards used to have no legal fraud protection unless your bank offered such. It appears to be different now and has been I'm told for around fifteen years.

That would be incorrect. See Section 806 of the FDCPA, 15 USC 1692d, which begins "A debt collector may not engage in any conduct the natural consequence of which is to harass, oppress, or abuse any person in connection with the collection of a debt.". There's also a kicker in section 805(b), which prohibits a debt collection from communicating with any third party without the consumer's consent except for the specific purposes described in section 804 on locating the actual consumer. So yes, the FDCPA provides remedies and protections for people other than the consumer.

That's actually the source of the problem. Legally, they can't talk to anyone about anything unless that person is the debtor. So the first thing they ask is, "Are you XXXX?"

You say "no," they immediately hang up, because they can't talk to anyone else about XXXX's debts. But they call back the next day and ask again.

You say "yes," they've just confirmed your number is a valid number for XXXX and will keep calling. You have to demand in writing that they stop, but that would require you to send a fraudulent letter in XXXX's name. Even so, they'll simply log that XXXX can be reached at your number, and sell that number to other debt collectors.

You hang up, they call you back the next day and ask again.

You try to be clever and demand their business address instead of answering yes or no, they simply repeat, "Are you XXXX? Are you XXXX? Are you XXXX?"

Trust me, there is no way out of that catch-22.

That would be incorrect. See Section 806 of the FDCPA, 15 USC 1692d, which begins "A debt collector may not engage in any conduct the natural consequence of which is to harass, oppress, or abuse any person in connection with the collection of a debt.". There's also a kicker in section 805(b), which prohibits a debt collection from communicating with any third party without the consumer's consent except for the specific purposes described in section 804 on locating the actual consumer. So yes, the FDCPA provides remedies and protections for people other than the consumer.

The FTC's budget was 292 million in 2011.
Google has $40~$50 billion in liquid cash just sitting around an not being spent.

Hence, most regulatory actions get settled because these companies are too big to prosecute.
If we funded our regulatory bodies like we fund the military, we could afford an army of lawers to keep corporate America from stepping out of line.

Google unfairly ranking their own products higher on their search engines would be an abuse of monopoly power.

It might have been, if they did that, but the FTC investigated that claim and didn't find support for it, saying:

In sum, we find that the evidence presented at this time does not support the allegation that Google’s display of its own vertical content at or near the top of its search results page was a product design change undertaken without a legitimate business justification. Rather, we conclude that Google’s display of its own content could plausibly be viewed as an improvement in the overall quality of Google’s search product. Similarly, we have not found sufficient evidence that Google manipulates its search algorithms to unfairly disadvantage vertical websites that compete with Google-owned vertical properties. Although at points in time various vertical websites have experienced demotions, we find that this was a consequence of algorithm changes that also could plausibly be viewed as an improvement in the overall quality of Google’s search results.

Although our careful review of the evidence in this matter supports our decision to close this investigation, we will remain vigilant and continue to monitor Google for conduct that may harm competition and consumers.

"regarding the specific allegations that the company biased its search results to hurt competition, the evidence collected to date did not justify legal action by the Commission .. The evidence did not demonstrate that Google's actions in this area stifled competition in violation of U.S. law".

Google had to agree to a FTC consent order after the Buzz social network, and this sounds similar to the stuff that they agreed not to to.
http://ftc.gov/opa/2011/03/google.shtm

The final paragraph says how to complain if you want to. For EU citizens, the US FTC is still the regulator to complain to, no idea about the rest of the world.

(The link is to the proposed order, but it became the final order).

I'm not sure if debt collection laws would apply since it's a business, not a personal debt. Fair Debt Collection Practices Act definitely doesn't.

Just FYI, the political calls are not restricted by the Do Not Call lists.

From the FTC website ( http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt107.shtm ):

Q&A # 28
*****
"If I register my number on the National Do Not Call Registry, will it stop all telemarketing calls?

No. Placing your number on the National Do Not Call Registry will stop most telemarketing calls, but not all. Because of limitations in the jurisdiction of the FTC and FCC, calls from or on behalf of political organizations, charities, and telephone surveyors would still be permitted, as would calls from companies with which you have an existing business relationship, or those to whom you’ve provided express agreement in writing to receive their calls. However, if you ask a company with which you have an existing business relationship to place your number on its own do-not-call list, it must honor your request. You should keep a record of the date you make the request."
*****

I appreciate a good lie as much as the next guy, but I would have just modded you "Troll" if I hadn't just posted. Since I had, a quick refutation of your opiate-induced rant:

FTC Complying with Made in USA:

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.

So instead, when you CTO, the manufacturer bulk-ships enclosures, motherboards, LCD panels, and such to a US fulfillment center, then snaps the right pieces together to complete your order. It is quite literally assembly of the system. (About as much work as building your own PC from components from Newegg, I would say.)

I would guess that most PC vendors do much the same thing, but since typical PC towers are much more easily configurable than an Apple iMac, they probably have to do even less work stateside.

The FTC has stated such "screwdriver" assembly of a computer from foreign parts does NOT qualify for "Assembled in USA" labelling. So no PC merely put together from foreign parts qualifies. There has to be some "substantial transformation" that takes place. So merely dumping the parts into a box doesn't qualify.

What would qualify and likely happened is Apple made some of the cases in the US. In this case, assembly transformed a block of aluminum into a case (machining) and firction-stir-welded it together, then the parts were put inside. In this case, there was a transformation of a part from solid metal into a case (irrelevant where the metal came from as it was transformed).

http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard

Look, if you give an credence at all to the idea that corporations look as far into the future as they can and attempt to the limits of their ability to arrange that future so they control as much of it as they can, then it's worthwhile thinking about what Intel is gunning for here.

IT also helps to remember that the direction of corporations are decided by a small circle of individuals who all , uh, know each other.

What they want is a world in which there are no *smart* terminals , just dumb ones whose owners are forced to offer up all their data to "the cloud" for processing and , um... examination.

Giving people serious computing power was the worst thing to ever happen in the eyes of people who want to have all the power all the time. Intel is one of those "people" and the people who work closely with Intel to plan the future are also of like mind.

The general purpose computer , not to say computing. is just too powerful to be given over to just anyone. They want to backpedal on this, but need to make that backpedaling look like "progress". So we have "cloud computing" and the planned demise of powerful, general purpose CPU chips under the control of individuals. Helps if you wipe other chip makers off the face of the earth through unsavory and illegal business practices also. Intel has a decades long history of such.

http://ftc.gov/opa/2010/08/intel.shtm

about a quarter of the way down the page:

http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=137874

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Competition.2C_antitrust_and_espionage

and so on for as long as you care to look.

If you care about owning general purpose computers, just don't buy Intel chips. AMD chips are more than fast enough for everything including all your games. That's the solution. Intel depends on you more than you depend on them.... so far.

Try and provide falsification conditions for your statement. What would it take for you to feel that Google genuinely isn't evil?

Are fraud and deception proof enough that they are?

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/August/11-dag-1078.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240004575084851798366446.html

http://www.zdnet.com/google-fined-for-obstructing-us-street-view-probe-4010025882/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402531,00.asp

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/03/google.shtm

On the other hand, the Patent system works well when viewed in its historical context. They have been a net benefit for innovation.

Actually, one of the most comprehensive studies on that topic (Fritz Machlup, An Economic Review of the Patent System) concluded more or less the opposite:

If one does not know whether a system "as a whole" (in contrast to certain features of it) is good or bad, the safest "policy conclusion" is to "muddle through" - either with it, if one has long lived with it, or without it, if one has lived without it. If we did not have a patent system, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting one. But since we have had a patent system for a long time, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge, to recommend abolishing it. This last statement refers to a country such as the United States of America - not to a small country and not to a predominantly nonindustrial country, where a different weight of argument might well suggest another conclusion.

Similarly, the FTC Innovation report from 2003 was also far from unequivocally positive about patents, especially in the hardware/software fields. Or Jim Bessen's research, as presented (twice) at an FFII conference in 2004.

For example, there are many fewer patents lawsuits regarding Smart Phones than there were in the time the original telephone was invented.

That does not exemplify how patents have supposedly been a net benefit for innovation. Additionally, you are wrongly paraphrasing the article you refer to below. It only says that nowadays, per filed patent there are fewer lawsuits than there were in the days of the fixed telephone. From that it concludes that there is no problem with the volume of patent lawsuits.

I would argue that the reason for this is that patents are used in a very different way today compared to how they were used back then (there were much less large companies back then amassing patent war chests just for defensive purposes). Arguably, the standards for patentability were also higher back then, which means that actually going to court rather than only looking for the players you can convince to settle out of course was a much less risky business.

Here is a god article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2012/02/09/no-the-patent-system-is-not-broken/2/

While I appreciate that shooting the messenger by itself is not a very strong argument, that's an opinion piece by "the vice president and head of strategic acquisitions at Intellectual Ventures". That's patent troll central. Suing companies, or threatening to sue them, based on all kinds of patents is their bread and butter.

Moving on to substance, he's most definitely wrong when he claims that "Every major technological and industrial breakthrough in U.S. history [..] has been accompanied by exactly the same surge in patenting, patent trading, and patent litigation that we see today in the smartphone business". Do you remember the massive patent wars from the eighties and nineties that came with the personal computer revolution? No? Me neither. There were a few lawsuits (e.g. Stac vs Microsoft), but there most definitely was no surge like what we see today.

What we need is general legal reform so that disputes can be decided simply and inexpensively without Lawyers getting all the goodies.

OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR
November 14, 2012
TO: JPL Employees and Contractor Personnel
FROM: Charles Elachi
SUBJECT: NASA Laptop Security Breach
On Tuesday November 13, we were all notified that a NASA laptop and official NASA documents issued to a Headquarters employee were stolen. The laptop contained records of sensitive, personally identifiable information (PII) for a large number of NASA employees, contractors and others. NASA is assessing and investigating the incident and taking every possible action to mitigate therisk of harm and/or inconvenience to affected employees.
We at Caltech/JPL are extremely concerned about the potential implications of this incident to our employees and affiliates. We have been in contact with NASA Headquarters, and they advise us that they intend to mail letters beginning this week to affected or potentially affected individuals as they are identified. NASA has not provided us with thelist of individuals whowill be notified.
In the meantime, a good resource of protective measures is the Federal Trade Commission's website, Facts for Consumers, Identity Theft: What to Know, What to Do, at: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/idtheft/idt01.shtm. The State of California also has information at www.privacy.ca.gov. Click on "Consumer Information Sheets" on the left-hand column and you will find several Consumer Information Sheets that may be helpful.
We call your attention to this portion of NASA's message:
"NASA has contracted with a data breach specialist, ID Experts, who will be sending letters to affected individuals, informing them that their sensitive PII was stored on the stolen laptop and they could be impacted by the breach. This notification also will provide them information on how to protect their identity using the fully managed services of ID Experts at no cost to the individual. These services will include a call center and website, credit and identity monitoring, recovery services in cases of identity compromise, an insurance reimbursement policy, educational materials, and access to fraud resolution representatives. If you receive a notification letter in the mail, follow the directions to activate your services as soon as possible.
All employees should be aware of any phone calls, emails, and other communications from individuals claiming to be from NASA or other official sources that ask for personal information or verification of it. NASA and ID Experts will not be contacting employees to ask for or confirm personal information. If you receive such a communication, please do not provide any personal information."
We will issue further relevant information as we learn more. We are committed to assisting our employees who may be impacted by this incident. If you have questions, please feel free to contact JPL Human Resources at x4-7506.

You file a complaint with the FTC after they've received a fair number of complaints...

The FTC will sue "AT&T" for "unfair or deceptive trade practices"

years ago, I worked for a company called Mutual Consolidated Savings, which is one of the many front companies for these operations. I was a grunt, not really informed of anything that was going on, but it was pretty obvious what was happening, I was the IT Admin's personal assistant, and I also transcribed "sales calls" (such as they were) to fight credit card chargebacks. They had a team of "financial specialists" which were people they pulled in off the street and gave jobs, and a team of "salespeople", which were the least-literate of the above group. And this was in a seedy part of Tacoma, WA, where those people are seriously bottom-rung people. I spent about 8 hours of my 10 hour day browsing webcomics, reading slashdot, and whatever else struck my fancy, 1 hour "transcribing" (which was literally copying and pasting the same conversation, doing a find-and-replace on the names as appropriate, and listening to the call once to confirm nothing weird went on. Only about 1/10 of the calls required any actual transcribing, and my transcripts WERE accurate, so I never got caught), and 1 hour in misc meetings/etc. IT was a joke, there was no security on the computers. They fired someone weekly for browsing porn at work. I installed a multiple-desktop application for Windows so I could keep my webcomics/etc invisible from a cursory overview. One day, we came into work, and the boss wasn't there. Nobody really thought much of it, figured he was sick or at a meeting somewhere. About 2 hours into the shift, the city police, state troopers, and FBI came into the building, shut everything down, and told us all to go file for unemployment. No joke: http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0823216/index.shtm Paul Morris Thompson is a sleazeball the kind of which you'd expect to sell used cars, and his wife was a Notary Public who kept everything looking legit. I miss that job, I made $10/hour to do nothing, now I make $10/hour talking to cell phone customers V_V Glad to hear the FTC is still after them, although I doubt it'll do any good.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre18.shtm

IANAL, but here is what I know:

Technically, you can sue them for any violation of the FDCPA. You file suit in your local jurisdiction. When they don't show up for the hearing (they almost never do, especially if the collector is out-of-state) you get a default judgement. Even if the debt is valid, an out of state collector can't do shit to you unless they are actually licensed to do business in your state. (they must display proof of license and license number when asked... if they don't have it they will back off and sell your debt to someone else) If they threaten you just send a C&D that thoroughly denies the debt and tells them that if they ever contact you without displaying proof of license you will report them to your state attorney general's office.

If a debt collector actually sues you for a debt that is not past the statute of limitations, don't sweat it. Just file a sworn denial on account at the jurisdiction that is handling your case. The sworn denial forces the collector to prove a debt is yours... they are counting on people getting scared and doing nothing so they can get an easy default judgement. Fortunately for you, their whole case depends on them having the original signed contract, if they don't have it then they are FUCKED and you can easily win the case by requesting dismissal.

Because the biggest return you can get is a refund on your ticket purchase, it's not an "investment". If you could get back more if the event was a big success, it would be a public offering of a security. There are some short form public offering arrangements available under SEC rules, but you still have to file a basic offering statement and financial statements.

"Crowdfunding" schemes have to be careful of this. If the pitch is that you can make money, it's a securities offering. If the pitch is that you get a product if some funding threshold is reached, the Mail Order Rule applies and there has to be a refund, without your asking for it, if the product isn't delivered by the stated date, or 30 days if not stated. If the pitch is that you're donating as a charity, the laws about charity frauds apply.

In the early days of the Internet, many small companies were fined under the Mail Order Rule because they had online ordering that didn't stop taking orders even though the manufacturing and delivery end of the business couldn't keep up. (Now, everybody with a clue has the shopping cart system hooked to inventory control, so the order isn't accepted unless it can be filled.) Companies don't get to hold onto the money until they get around to filling the order. They can beg the customer for more time, but must, by default, refund if they don't hear from the customer.

In the US, Kickstarter projects are subject to the FTC's Mail Order Rule. The Mail Order Rule basically says that if you order something, it has to be delivered or your money refunded within a specified time. The seller can specify a firm future delivery date, and if they don't, there's a 30 day default. Also, if the seller can't deliver, they must refund your money without you having to ask for it. The seller can ask for more time, but if you don't respond, they have to refund the money. This is a good rule; it keeps the mail order industry honest.

In the early days of the Web, many companies that accepted online orders got into trouble with the mail order rule. Usually, this was because they had online ordering but a paper-based order fulfillment system, and accepted far more orders than they could fill. Then they made excuses rather than refunds. The FTC fined companies for that. Now, everybody serious has the shopping cart system connected to the inventory system, so the order isn't accepted if it can't be shipped.

So Kickstarter companies in the US can get in trouble if they don't deliver. ZionEyes, with their vaporware "HD glasses", ran into this.

The "free" market where nothing can happen without government approval being described here is the US. Our Federal Trade Commission regulates what can and can't be sold, and heavily regulates advertising too. We also have money exchanges being monitored by the Internal Revenue Service to make sure it's being taxed fully, which helps prevent transactions that aren't regulated by the FTC from happening. Also, the minute you want to pay people to work for you, compliance with a giant list of Social Security and unemployment rules becomes mandatory, among others.

Start a company here and do any amount of business, and more government agencies will come looking for you every day, each with their own giant set of rules for what you can and can't do. There's a whole additional class of regulations for companies that can easily kill a small one, around obtaining financing for expansion, privacy rules, intellectual property, and the impact of your company on the environment. The Small Business Administration gives a good short picture of just how regulated even the smallest company is here in the US.

Describing the US using words like "capitalism" or "free market" is good for a big laugh from anyone who has started a business here.

Here is an explanation of what to do if your SSN gets compromised, courtesy of the Federal Trade Commission.

Unlike a lot of state/county "fund raising", fines collected by the FTC and other departments are not counted as income. Some of the money may go to the people that file the grievance with the FTC with the balance going to the treasury department. Fines are only about 1 million or so a year, maybe a bit higher, so compared to the trillion or so dollars the government is spending, it doesn't really provide incentive to fine people except as needed in order to protect consumers.

Information comes from http://www.ftc.gov/oig/reports/ar02052.pdf with information about fees collected on page 19 and an explanation that a debit and credit are both entered under section (h) on page 22. I didn't see an exact accounting as to where the fees went specifically, but this seems to be the jist of it.

Why wouldn't it be the same? Anonymous sources use the news media all the time to get a message out anonymously. It's really no different other then a dislike for one more then another.

There is precedent for the FTC coming down on shilling. It could be argued in court that paying bloggers to whitewash a brand is a "testimonial". I'm not a lawyer so I'm sure a good one could dream up all sorts of ways to unmask the miscreants legally.

> The thing was, Google was already under an FCC settlement because of violating privacy policies in the past

Uh huh. And so is Facebook:

http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0923184/111129facebookagree.pdf