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Google wasn't the only one using this widely publicized bug in Safari? According to the original WSJ article:

The coding also has a role in some Facebook games and "apps"---particularly if the app wants to store a user's login information or game scores. In fact, a corporate Facebook page for app developers called "Best Practices" includes a link to Mr. Garg's blog post.

So, how large of a fine is Facebook going to pay?

The thing was, Google was already under an FCC settlement because of violating privacy policies in the past:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/03/google.shtm. This means that Google can get in trouble for doing things that other companies get away with. It's also why the "Oh, we didn't know that our tracking cookies were sticking where people didn't want them" excuse doesn't fly; they were subject to special rules and they were supposed to be making super extra double sure that they didn't do anything to impinge upon users' privacy.

Sort of like how some convicted drunk drivers have driving restrictions that the rest of us don't.

So, a bunch of posts saying this is wrong because it's misleading, others posting in support of businesses lying (aka: committing fraud). I'm guessing that the majority of people don't understand that there is actually a definition for "Made in the USA." If they're not living up to the standard, it is indeed fraud.

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

Actually, it's very simple.... you follow the legal standard.

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

The FTC requires that country-of-origin claims be assessed by portioning the manufacturing costs of the final product. A couple of dollars worth of foreign components/costs in an otherwise domestically sourced product that costs $300 is not considered to be an issue. If, on the other hand, the final product cost $5, then it's not acceptable to make a "Made in the USA" claim.

Here is a link to the FTC page which describes the situation a bit more clearly, if not nearly so briefly.
http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard

So the die cast case cost >$200? makes sense.

The Federal Trade Commission has specific regulations on what qualifies for Made In USA

These are published in the Federal Register

http://www.ftc.gov/opp/madeusa2/62fr63755.pdf

"an unqualified U.S. origin claim is
a claim that the product is made entirely
in the United States except for a de
minimis or negligible amount of foreign
content"

Failing to adhere to this opens you up to deceptive advertising fines.

So if Google is making this claim they need to be sourcing nearly everything in this device from the US.

The threshold is really damn high.

"Made in the USA" is regulated by the FTC. Their rules are below:

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

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.

The FTC requires that country-of-origin claims be assessed by portioning the manufacturing costs of the final product. A couple of dollars worth of foreign components/costs in an otherwise domestically sourced product that costs $300 is not considered to be an issue. If, on the other hand, the final product cost $5, then it's not acceptable to make a "Made in the USA" claim.

Here is a link to the FTC page which describes the situation a bit more clearly, if not nearly so briefly.
http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard

If I had points, I'd mod you up! Unfortunately, I don't.

The FTC requires that country-of-origin claims be assessed by portioning the manufacturing costs of the final product. A couple of dollars worth of foreign components/costs in an otherwise domestically sourced product that costs $300 is not considered to be an issue. If, on the other hand, the final product cost $5, then it's not acceptable to make a "Made in the USA" claim.

Here is a link to the FTC page which describes the situation a bit more clearly, if not nearly so briefly.
http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard

I know mostly we don't like attributed facts on this site but maybe a link to the FTC would be in order since they, you know, actually enforce this stuff.

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

It looks to me like this might not qualify for an unqualified made in the USA label especially if a considerable amount of the electronics assembly is done in another country.

Not trying to justify any hate, but maybe it should read assembled in the USA? Also, is there a threshold for electronics to meet for made in the USA?

The FTC standard is that "all or virtually all" the components are made in the USA. And if you look at iFixit, you find that virtually all the major components were or could have been made in the USA; they didn't check the lot numbers to see if the parts which are made in multiple countries were, in fact, made in the US. While in general if you order a bunch of parts from a supplier you get them from wherever the supplier chooses to send them from, I'm sure that's negotiable.

(Disclosure: I work for Google, but not on the Nexus Q)

Even if it is a bit fuzzy, the FTC regulates the use of express claims like "Made in the USA" See this webpage for details:
http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard

In short, not every part of the device needs to be from the US for the device to be "Made in the USA". Here is a relevent exerpt for people who are interested, but not THAT interested:
-------------------
What factors does the Commission consider to determine whether a product is "all or virtually all" made in the U.S.?

The product’s final assembly or processing must take place in the U.S. The Commission then considers other factors, including how much of the product’s total manufacturing costs can be assigned to U.S. parts and processing, and how far removed any foreign content is from the finished product. In some instances, only a small portion of the total manufacturing costs are attributable to foreign processing, but that processing represents a significant amount of the product’s overall processing. The same could be true for some foreign parts. In these cases, the foreign content (processing or parts) is more than negligible, and, as a result, unqualified claims are inappropriate.

Example: A company produces propane barbecue grills at a plant in Nevada. The product’s major components include the gas valve, burner and aluminum housing, each of which is made in the U.S. The grill’s knobs and tubing are imported from Mexico. An unqualified Made in USA claim is not likely to be deceptive because the knobs and tubing make up a negligible portion of the product’s total manufacturing costs and are insignificant parts of the final product.

Example: A table lamp is assembled in the U.S. from American-made brass, an American-made Tiffany-style lampshade, and an imported base. The base accounts for a small percent of the total cost of making the lamp. An unqualified Made in USA claim is deceptive for two reasons: The base is not far enough removed in the manufacturing process from the finished product to be of little consequence and it is a significant part of the final product.

Yeah, both the FTC guidelines and the current W3C DNT draft both state that users should opt-out of tracking, not opt-in. Furthermore, the advertizing industry groups like that have had the most successful with self-regulation efforts have flat-out said that while they will respect the user's chose to opt-out, they will ignore any system that opts users out automatically.

Microsoft's decision here is completely counter productive. At best, it means that sites will add code to ignore theDNT header if the UA is IE. At worst it will derail the entire process.

I think Microsoft's action here is simply intended to reduce Google's ad profits.

And you forgot one more argument: ad companies would not mind to respect an opt-in DNT program because users who cared to opt-in would be those few paranoid NoScript types who don't click on ads anyway. So following the DNT program would cost them nearly nothing, and would be good PR.
But thanks to Microsoft, any ad company who follows DNT will be losing serious money. Hopefully they will ignore DNT only when the UA is MSIE so the rest of people can still get DNT.

Yeah, both the FTC guidelines and the current W3C DNT draft both state that users should opt-out of tracking, not opt-in. Furthermore, the advertizing industry groups like that have had the most successful with self-regulation efforts have flat-out said that while they will respect the user's chose to opt-out, they will ignore any system that opts users out automatically.

Microsoft's decision here is completely counter productive. At best, it means that sites will add code to ignore theDNT header if the UA is IE. At worst it will derail the entire process.

If you must hype your product, at least be honest enough to let people know you're an employee.

This isn't just a good idea. It's the law!

The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.

Actually, that's not true at all. If you fail to report fraudulent transactions within 60 days of statement mailing, the bank and/or credit card company is not responsible for any investigation or repayment under the Fair Credit Billing Act.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre04.shtm

Where does it say in the constitution that congress is responsible for being a consumer or even privacy watchdog? Isn't that the responsibility of the FTC Bereau of Consumer Protection, CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), the newly created Department of Consumer Protection or the CPSC (Consumer Protection Safety Commission)? See below for links.. these are separate organizations of government.

I think the congressional hearings are far, far too used. I watch as ignorant senators call up Goldman Sachs or Toyota and grill them on practices and safety. Meanwhile, they can't pass a budget for the bloated, ignorant government to run on. Senators act like royalty, yet they're the ones trading on insider information and often the ones who caused the problem with restrictive laws or regulations in the first place.

The gut instinct of all of us, when we see an article like this,l is to say, "My privacy is important!" and to be a little thankful for the government to be the oversight when we feel powerless, *yet* its the government who is tapping out phones, e-mails and electronic communication illegally. Am I the only one who recognizes how bad things have become??!

-- Ragetech

Links:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/consumer.shtm - FTC
http://www.consumerfinance.gov/ - CFPB
http://www.ct.gov/DCP/site/default.asp - Department of Consumer Protection
http://www.cpsc.gov/ - CPSC

The fine article misrepresents the facts. The EU case was decided by a commission without legal process. As for the US cases, you can read the FTC decision at http://www.ftc.gov/os/adjpro/d9341/101102inteldo.pdf . Quoting:

The Respondent, its attorneys, and counsel for the Commission having thereafter
executed an agreement containing a consent Order, an admission by Respondent of all the
jurisdictional facts set forth in the complaint, a statement that the signing of said agreement is for
settlement purposes only and does not constitute an admission by Respondent that the law has
been violated as alleged in such complaint, or that the facts as alleged in such complaint, other
than jurisdictional facts, are true and waivers and other provisions as required by the
Commission's Rules.

The NYAG settlement can be read at http://download.intel.com/pressroom/legal/nyag/NYAG-Intel_Final_Signed_Settlement_Agreement.pdf As stated there, the settlement was to avoid further litigation costs, once the NYAG found that its case had "been eviscerated".

In none of the cases to date has Intel admitted any culpability. In none of the cases has Intel been compelled to change its business practices or modify its products. What can one conclude from this?

In case anyone wants to see the FTC's point of view: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre18.shtm

This sounds a lot like Toys R Us vs the FTC

The FTC "Mail Order Rule" (http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus02-business-guide-mail-and-telephone-order-merchandise-rule) does apply to phone and internet sales as well.

If you don't have an implied shipping time ("Most orders ship within 48 hours!"), you get a default period of 30 days. That sounds like forever these days, but remember that it has its roots in mail order.

If you can't meet that deadline, you must notify the customer "reasonably quickly", no later than by the promised ship date. You must tell them a revised shipping date or tell them you don't know when it will ship (including the reason for the unknown delay and a statement that the order can be cancelled at any time before it ships). If the delay is less than 30 days, non-response can be considered consent to the delay (which also must be stated).

If you still can't hit that revised shipment date, you need to notify the customer again. With this notice, you must provide a reason for the delay and a new ship date, or a statement that you don't know when it'll ship. With this notice, you must cancel the order if the customer doesn't respond. If the customer agrees to an indefinite wait on any proper notification, you do not need to notify them further.

At any point before the item actually ships, the customer has the right to cancel the order and receive a full and prompt refund, and the company has the right to cancel the order and issue a full refund. If the company believes it won't be able to ship the item, they are required to cancel and refund the order. Any violation is subject to a fine of up to $16,000 from the FTC, as well as mail fraud charges if the Postal Service is involved, and state consumer protection laws.

I'm not sure how the "early December" ship date that Dave got is handled by this. Regardless, I'd say that the 16th is past the "early" part of the month, so he legally should've been notified. Based on the November 3 order date, "early December" might fall under the default 30 days, meaning he should've been notified by December 3. I'd say the seller is definitely in legal hot water regarding the failure to ship, and it could've been avoided with a simple email about the delay.

I saw in comments elsewhere that the Visa and Mastercard agreements don't allow you to charge for an order before it ships, but I don't have any experience to verify that. I would think that it wouldn't be completely outlawed for the purpose of preorders and minor unexpected delays.

Like a lot of others, I think this product seems kind of cool (even if I wouldn't buy one myself). I actually saw it on Microcenter's site while browsing the 12/26 sales. I couldn't really tell what it was based on the thumbnail pic, so I took a little time to check it out. I'm a fan of David Kotkin's original idea behind this, and it could be nice for ubergamers (I had the NES controller snap-on joystick things back in the day). It seems like a good idea and something that a number of people actually seem to really like, so I'd hate to see it die off just because of one jerk.

Paul Christoforo, on the other hand, sounds like a total tool. As others have pointed out, he seems to be sorry only that he got caught and it's now an inconvenience for him. I wonder how many non-Dave customers had similar email exchanges with him. He's constantly acting like a tough guy and dropping names, until he realizes there's someone bigger and he turns into a pathetic little whiner. I don't wish any physical harm upon him or anything, but I hope this totally destroys any hope of a future in PR. Maybe he could get a job in a call center or something...

The Federal Trade Commission's Mail Order Rule applies here. It's real simple:

1. Mail orders must ship within 30 days unless there was an explicit delivery date specified. If the seller knows there will be a delay in shipping, they must contact the customer and offer the customer a full refund or the option to wait another 30 days, at the customer's choice.
2. After 60 days, the seller must provide a full refund unless the customer explicitly consents in writing to a further delay. If the customer takes no action, the refund must be sent.

Staples paid a big fine for this. So did the Beanie Baby people. In the early days of the Internet, a lot of companies were hit by this, because they had web sites accepting orders at high speed, but the back end fulfillment operation was manual and couldn't keep up. Now, most serious online merchants have the ordering system tied to the inventory system, so they stop taking orders when the inventory is used up,

There is no legal or ethical justification to force [Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo] to use an open game format.

If you don't agree with the restrictions on a Nook Tablet, you can always buy an Archos 80 G9 instead. But there are no competing video game console makers that use open formats. So if Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo conspire to forbid a particular game from appearing on any console, why isn't that predatory refusal to deal?

I don't think you 'get' COPPA. It doesn't say an internet service needs to monitor your children. It is saying in essence the exact opposite. It says that they have to disclose what data they collect, who they share it with, limit the data collected to only what is necessary to use the service, can't collect any information about the child unless the parent gives explicit permission. If the parent gives permission to collect the data, it allows the parents to tell the service to stop and to delete the child's data. It also lists other rules on what data can be collected and how it is shared... but read it yourself I'm not going to list it all here. The only thing that pisses me off is that I can't stipulate the same conditions to Google for myself.

COPPA is a tool to aid the parent and COPPA is anathema to everything Google is about: collecting data. Data is the life blood of the company; literally. It is easier for them to just say no to those under 13 than to spend a ton of money to set up the required controls. Especially, as I think, most parents are likely to chose not to allow their child's data to be collected nor shared (and I can't blame them one bit). And it is the data that is important to Google, not the child. It is with the data that they generate their revenue. So in a nutshell, they have two choices: 1) spend a ton of money to create and maintain the controls to meet the COPPA requirements and keep children using GMail and other services (which also eat up bandwidth and disk space, both of which also cost money) without gaining any revenue generating data from them in return, or 2) simply bar children from using Google services. Option 2 is way cheaper. Remember in a business the number one rule is that money coming in MUST be greater than money going out. Google is just following their number one rule. You libertarians and neocons can't possibly argue Google's position in this respect, can you? Hell, even business friendly liberals.. yes they exist... can't argue either.

Financially the choice they made makes much more sense for their business (and they are a business, not your cuddly free email provider). Remember, the only reason Google cares at all about the child or anyone else who puts their personal data on a Google server is because they put their personal data on a Google server.

You can try and say it is up to the parent to monitor the child which is a good starting point, but what are you going to do when the biggest services tell you they are going to store and possibly share (at their discretion not yours) your child's data and there is nothing you can do about it? Tell your child not to use the internet? Good luck with that. Seriously... good luck. The rest of us understand that you can say no, but if they can get access to the internet, anywhere, they are going to start using it. The library, a friends house, wherever. Especially if all their friends are using it, and then it will happen no matter what you say or do (unless you are one of those who chose to live in the backwoods of Idaho because 'the government is out to get you'... but if that's the case, you have more serious problems, and it ain't the government). So you might as well have them use it at home. And it would be nice to know who knows their name and where they live, and better yet, tell them to mind their own business.

As to how to verify the parent:

Access Verification
At a parent's request, operators must disclose the general kinds of personal information they collect online from children (for example, name, address, telephone number, email address, hobbies), as well as the specific information collected from children who visit their sites. Operators must use reasonable procedures to ensure they are dealing with the child's parent before they provide access to the child's specific information.

They can use a variety of methods to

I got my definition of bait and switch from the FTC. Where did you get yours from?

It appears that provision was intended to prevent "tie-in" sales. A Businessperson's Guide to Federal Warranty Law gives the example of vacuum cleaner manufacturers requiring branded vacuum cleaner bags to keep the warranty in effect.

Because the firmware on your phone is not (yet) a monetized product distinct from the phone itself, I suspect requiring a specific vendor's firmware does not fall afoul of the spirit of the law. Also note that the vendor is allowed to void the warranty because of damage caused by incorrect service or modification, which I would assume can be extended to damage caused by buggy third-party firmware.

The politicians who wrote the laws about such things game themselves an exemption to call you. It is entirely possible that if you turn around it do it to them, you could be doing something illegal.

They didn't just exempt themselves, they exempted political organisations - an organisation dedicated to delivering the grievances of the citizenry to politicians sounds like the very definition of a political organisation. But then again, I am not a lawyer or a politician.

Also, repeatedly calling the same number with the same message (as opposed to calling many numbers with the same message like the campaigns do) could be considered harassment.

FTC Gives Final Approval to Settlement with Google over Buzz Rollout
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/10/buzz.shtm

The settlement resolves charges that Google used deceptive tactics and violated its own privacy promises to consumers when it launched its social network, Google Buzz, in 2010. The [FTC] alleged that the practices violate the FTC Act. The settlement bars the company from future privacy misrepresentations, requires it to implement a comprehensive privacy program, and calls for regular, independent privacy audits for the next 20 years.

Google has made numerous mistakes and misteps with regard to "don't be evil"
If you bothered to read the follow up stories, you'd see that the boy is crying wolf because there is a wolf.

Well gosh, I guess I can do your research for you. I'm a bit busy, but you can start here:

http://www.privacy.ca.gov/privacy_laws.htm

http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/glbact/glbsub1.htm

http://www.law.state.ak.us/department/civil/consumer/4548.html

http://government.dc.gov/DC/Government/Data+&+Transparency/Consumer+Protection/Consumer+Information+101/Consumer+Personal+Information+Security+Breach+Notification+Act

http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/mca_toc/30_14_17.htm

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/1349.19

http://www.cdt.org/privacy/guide/protect/laws.php

Telecommunications Act (1996) Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI)

Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003

Shall I keep going? or are you prepared to admit that in this very same universe that we share, here in America, there are in fact laws governing the use, protection, and sharing of personal information? The laws aren't what I personally want them to be, but they exist, and the whole point of what I was saying is that the current hands-off free-market approach is BAD, and would be LESS BAD if there were MORE LAWS in this area -- a point which survives your assertion that the laws don't exist. Actually I don't have time to keep looking things up for you, so if you aren't prepared to admit it, then your denial will have to be the end of the discussion.

My final point, as a question to you, would be why would Borders even have a contract, if the contract didn't expand its rights beyond the legal defaults? Why would it bother to pay a lawyer to make up such a contract? Why would it bother to present the contract to consumers? If there were no laws governing it, and they could do whatever they want, then they would, no contract required. It doesn't even make sense that they would tie their own hands with their own contract, resulting in a lesser ability for them to do what they want to do.

There were 3 call centers located near my home that did nothing but make calls on behalf of collection agencies. I had a chance to talk to a manager of one and he told me that they only call out of state numbers. By calling only out of state numbers they only have to abide by federal regulations and not any state laws.

Here are the federal trade commission's regulation concerning debt collection practices.

Pretty much everything you stated is in that document except that no restrictions on the number of calls that can be made per day except that they can't "Causing a telephone to ring or engaging any person in telephone conversation repeatedly or continuously with intent to annoy, abuse, or harass any person at the called number."

Apparently you missed this. The FTC approved it, so you can stop trolling.

About as surprised as the agency that was voted for by congress and given funds by congress as a response to the loan practices that caused the housing bubble to collapse in 2008, has no direction or head, and is as powerless as ever.

You voted for republicans? You got your wish. Fuck you for buying our stuff, too bad if it has poison in it, affects your health long term, or we are dumping in your favorite river. Fuck you if what we say is different from what we do. Fuck you, because buyer beware is the Republican belief.

http://www.cpsc.gov/
http://www.consumerfinance.gov/
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/
None of which do shit because the laws are such that they are terrible.

Do you spend 100s of millions of dollars on research to formulate new ideas and then bring them to market? Would you be able to afford to do that in a world where everyone freely copied your ideas and took them to market preventing you from ever recovering investment.

It's called competition. Why don't lawyers ask for patents on court strategies? After all, by not doing so their peers can steal those strategies and win cases without paying the original inventor of that strategy a single penny. And yet the entire lawyer profession hasn't imploded yet due to no one being interested anymore in helping their clients to the best of their abilities even though everyone else can look at how they argued the case.

No two cases are identical, you say? You can't just "take an argument" from one court case and apply it to another? Clients also care about how your ability to talk to them to figure out where they come from, what their background is and the background of the other party, and how to puzzle all the pieces together in this particular case? In fact, the most valuable part of the services a lawyer provides is not whether or not he uses some special argumentation, but rather how he tailors everything to the current case and uses whatever is most appropriate under the circumstances? Lawyers build their cases based on precedents argued by their peers? And their innovations are an inherent part of their work that they have to do to be competitive and get good results, rather than something they only do to get exclusive rights to them and get other people to pay for the privilege of doing something similar? And innovating in arguing before a court is definitely not something they stop doing because most of it becomes public without them being able to get royalties for it later?

Maybe the lawyer profession isn't that inherently different from software development after all...

And yes, there is more than philosophical rhetoric: in general, patents are some of the least used and least valued tools to ensure competitiveness for software firms (see esp. slides 14 and 15). This has been shown time and time again both in the past and in the present.

The best quote I know of is still this one from Robert Barr in a hearing before the FTC (and Cisco most definitely invests hundreds of millions in R&D, so it even addresses your point literally rather than only generally):

My observation is that patents have not been a positive force in stimulating innovation at Cisco. Competition has been the motivator; bringing new products to market in a timely manner is critical. Everything we have done to create new products would have been done even if we could not obtain patents on the innovations and inventions contained in these products. I know this because no one has ever asked me ‘can we patent this?’ before deciding whether to invest time and resources into product development.

On the other hand, I am sometimes asked whether anyone else has a patent on a product or feature that we are considering. But, despite the fact that our products are independently developed, that we do not copy, I can never definitively ‘clear’ a product or feature, or determine the costs of licensing in advance.

I.o.w., he basically said the same as the GP.

This is not true, actually. Regulation E covers both credit and debit cards. If you report the fraud within two days of discovering the fraudulent activity, you can be liable for up to $50 (some banks, like mine, offer zero liability).

I am happy to note that you are correct. See FTC's Facts for Consumers. I wonder how long that's been in effect. The guy at work was reasonably upset. I wonder if he missed the 60 day window or it occurred before the rules changed.

It may take a couple more years before Missouri gets hammered by the feds for violating the Sherman anti trust act if they let this dog and pony show get away from them. They were put on notice years ago that their state law is too vague. Even if legalzoom loses and pays 15 mil in damages, they will probably make it up in free ads and new revenue.

You miss the double standard - retailers don't face any punishment if they sell an NR or R rated movie to a minor, so why should they face punishment for selling an M rated video game to a minor? An NR (or uncut) movie probably would get an AO rating by the MPAA (effectively either pornographic or have graphic violence that is beyond what even the MPAA allows), but they still sell them in retail stores.

Also, as I've pointed out all along - buying a video game and going to see a movie is not an apples-to-apples comparison, since theater would be analogous to arcade and arcades are pretty much dead. Buying a video game vs buying a movie at the same retail store is a much better comparison. In this case, kids were able to buy NR and R rated movies more than twice as often as M rated video games (13% bought a video game, 33% got into a movie, 47% bought an unrated movie).

I don't have a problem with regulating violent and pornographic media to children, but California's over-broad, ambiguous, biased toward video game law deserved to be smacked to the curb as just that, especially when retailers have shown that enforcement of ESRB ratings has improved drastically over the past decade - in fact, it is even better than theater's enforcement of MPAA ratings according to studies I've seen (showing once again how out of touch the people that create this type of legislation are with reality).

  Punishing the retailer isn't the answer, either - the 16 year old kid working the register doesn't give a rats ass if their boss gets fined, and if they get fired over it, there's always another entry job somewhere. I guarantee the 16 year old kid won't be paying the fine, even though the best punishment would be to fine the actual person that sold the game (another reason I have a problem with the now failed California law) - if I was 16 and told I'd be paying fines out of my pocket, I'd be damn sure that law was enforced.

What about Rated R movies?

What about them? As far as I know, there is no law restricting the sale of R-rated movies, and the MPAA rating system is strictly voluntary, just like the ESRB. Not to mention that the FTC continues to release their annual report that the ESRB is the best voluntary rating system in terms of its enforcement at the retailer level.

You seem to be using the spam button to somehow punish the business in question.

No, I'm flagging businesses that have E-mail behavior that is spam, even if that business is supposedly a legit one. Like I said, not having an opt-out method is a violation of the CAN-SPAM act, see here: http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

5. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future.

It's not my fault if a company decides to violate the law and be a spammer, even if it's accidental. I'm flagging something that is spam (no way to opt out) as spam. If this means the business' legit customers are hurt, it's the business' fault for doing things wrong, not mine. They need to learn to get their act together, and it's not my place to teach them, so I flag it as the spam that it is and go on with my life.

For what it's worth, I'd also be pissed at a business I was a legit customer of for handling their E-mail that way, simply because I know there's a good chance they're going to end up with their E-mails marked as spam.

of each business 5 dollars per piece of SPAM. Real businesses will distance themselves almost instantly.

The fine is already $16,000. From the link:

Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000, so non-compliance can be costly.

It's just a matter of actually finding them, dragging them to your jurisdiction and squeezing blood from a stone.

After the DOJ didn't say squat when it came to Intel rigging compilers or bribing OEMs

DOJ, no, FTC, yes. You should get your facts straight.

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

Your entire rant about Intel has been rectified. First AMD sued Intel, that case was settled over a year ago. Then the FTC gave Intel an anticompetitive smack down on top of that, which was settled nearly a year ago.

http://download.intel.com/pressroom/legal/AMD_settlement_agreement.pdf

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

Under the settlement, Intel will be prohibited from:

        conditioning benefits to computer makers in exchange for their promise to buy chips from Intel exclusively or to refuse to buy chips from others; and
        retaliating against computer makers if they do business with non-Intel suppliers by withholding benefits from them.

In addition, the FTC settlement order will require Intel to:

        modify its intellectual property agreements with AMD, Nvidia, and Via so that those companies have more freedom to consider mergers or joint ventures with other companies, without the threat of being sued by Intel for patent infringement;
        offer to extend Via’s x86 licensing agreement for five years beyond the current agreement, which expires in 2013;
        maintain a key interface, known as the PCI Express Bus, for at least six years in a way that will not limit the performance of graphics processing chips. These assurances will provide incentives to manufacturers of complementary, and potentially competitive, products to Intel’s CPUs to continue to innovate; and
        disclose to software developers that Intel computer compilers discriminate between Intel chips and non-Intel chips, and that they may not register all the features of non-Intel chips. Intel also will have to reimburse all software vendors who want to recompile their software using a non-Intel compiler.

The FTC's main site indicates 1-877-FTC-HELP as the phone number to call to file a complaint. Even if they can block phone calls to that number, the FTC's address is listed as:

Federal Trade Commission

600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20580

and I suspect sending a letter to that address re: complaints department would probably get it to the right person.

Maybe you should check the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and listen to some calls. A fun game is seeing how many violations they can squeeze into those few minutes. If Section 813 did not make these cases so hard to prove, I guaranty there would be a ton of cases and class actions.

Parents can learn more about how entertainment media for children are rated here. This site describes the different ratings systems, and provides links to the organizations that sponsor them.

I guess you did read it too fast.

Yes, and identity theft is not a problem in the US, is it? Last info I've found is that there are millions of ID-theft victims each year (that data is from 2003, it's the newest I've found). Having a national ID-card will at least limit the damage someone can do with a stolen identity.

Here in Belgium, we've had a national identity card for decades (it's mandatory for everyone above 12 years old). Recently it was updated to an electronic variant. We even have a (shock, horror) global database of all Belgian people, containing info about when they were born, where they live, etc.

Has it lead to totalitarian repression of the Belgian people? No, it hasn't.

We have laws in place to regulate who can use identity information, and for what. We also have independent bodies who keep an eye on privacy issues. For example, law enforcement can force you to show your ID, but only when they have proper cause (when you get caught doing something you shouldn't, for example). The same things apply for searching you in the identity database (and this gets check: I know someone who works in IT at my local police office, and they get regular requests to provide info about who did a lookup in the database and why).

What it did lead to, is that we all have a way of proving our identity when needed. When doing government-things for example, or for opening a bank account. When I don't want to show my ID, I can choose not to (and then don't get the services that require me to). The electronic one can't be read contactless, and is actually quite open. The certificates on it can be used to sign my mail, log me in to websites, and stuff like that.

So yes, I actually like the card. I don't see it as a privacy issue (when something requires it, they have to know my name anyway), but it does provide a way to prove I'm me. And no it's not unhackable or anything like that, but it's a hell of a lot better than what you guys have in place.

But hey, what do we know. We also have national healthcare and things like that. Here, people protest when they actually want to take some of it away...

Sounds to me like the law is only treating symptoms. How about a law that makes it illegal to sell customer info without their express written consent?

The FTC is actually asking for public comments on something along those lines. Submit comments by Feb. 18. (It would help if your comments address the specific questions they ask; see some of the already-submitted comments to get an idea as to how off-target some can be.)

At the risk of seeming as if I'm merely self-promoting, for those who don't have time to read the entire ~100 page report but would be interested in commenting, I tried to summarize the report, as well as suggest some targeted consumer-privacy friendly comments.

Ignoring ad hominum attacks and thermal energy tangent, it appears your arguments are (1) work on everything blind to its contribution to the whole and (2) work on vehicle engines because they have a shorter product lifespan when compared to coal plants.

(1) Focus on every single piece and you end up with no focus at all. The question is, where would you have the greatest IMPACT. The solar panel company I work for is now building solar cells that are just a penny or two above the $0.10 per kilo-watt-hour of grid parity. Give us a few years and I think we'll be cheaper than coal. Kill coal and start building solar and wind farms! Coal and petroleum are currently equivalent in their CO2 emissions Source and we can get that power through alternative methods for less than the cost of replacing all of our cars with only slightly better mileage, which would have the greater impact?

(2) Using $250m cars on the road with an estimated average $30k/vehicle retail cost ( Source ), here are approximately $7.5 trillion (that's with a T) worth of cars on the road today. There are approximately 600 ( Source ) coal plants in the US. To improve the mileage of cars, you essentially have to replace them entirely. Cost: $7.5 trillion. Spending that money on coal plants instead would provide $12.5 BILLION on EACH of the 600 coal plants. Considering that a coal plant costs less than $1b ( Source ) to build, I am sure we can find significantly better uses for that extra $11.5b per plant.

Some additional arguments
(1) Where do you suppose the power charging your Chevy Volt is coming from? Chase people from gas and you end up with a coal-powered car.

(2) The largest 15 ocean-going ocean tankers emit as much of some types of air pollution as every single car on earth. (!!!!) Source. I can't seem to find how much CO2 they emit... How many tankers do you think we have circling the globe?

In conclusion, I stand by my position: For CO2 emissions reduction purposes only, our dollars would be better spent on improved power generation... and to beat the CO2 drum is rhetoric designed to whip up the uninformed... or to advance someone's agenda...

I think you mean the FTC not the FCC.

The proposed FTC regulation

Plus an alternative is already being proposed for a federal rule or regulation: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/12/dnttestimony.shtm

I like their way better which would work along the lines of a the central "do not call" registry. I register in one place and advertisers must wash their lists against these users. With an http header, I think the burden is higher to implement b/c you have to integrate it into your webstack. With a registry, you can keep all the data, but must wash it before you use it give it to the marketing dept for analysis. Seems easier to me anyway.