Slashdot Mirror

Try looking at the actual study:

http://www.lieffcabraser.com/p...

Did you really expect a news article to represent it accurately 8-/?

I can't find the exact example I remembered, but I did find this.

See second page, section 1.
http://www.lieffcabraser.com/c...

In other words, yes, there were "no cold calls", but some of these agreements went much further than that.

if you're talking about 2009, yes there was a class action that was settled with a free product upgrade and partial reimbursement of data recovery costs: http://www.lieffcabraser.com/C...

Per the lawyers for the plaintiffs, the terms of the settlement will become public when the paperwork is filed with the court next month.

Examine the H1b visa process. It makes HR become customized to "virtual slavery" and devaluing workers. I would be surprised if all companies who use the H1b visa as aggressively as google/microsoft/cisco/etc... are not as discriminatory. You are talking about the people who authored the engineering price fixing that is currently under class-action lawsuit. If they are going to price-fix the wages of "white American counterparts" then it is unsurprising that they also are wage fixing their Indian counterparts.

http://www.lieffcabraser.com/Case-Center/Apple-Google-Silicon-Valley-No-Cold-Calling-Anti-Poaching-Lawsuit.shtml

And there's absolutely no justification whatsoever that they can make for why this is needed.

Actually many, MANY justifications for needing this clarification.

But the most important one is probably this:

The sponsor is Kay Hagan. Listed in her Top 20 contributors are companies like Bank of America, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and Time Warner. The cosponsors are Michael Bennet (Comcast, Qwest, DISH Network, Level 3, Time Warner), Michael Enzi (Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and John Isakson (Home Depot, Delta, AFLAC, Cox, Citigroup, & GE). So, you know, no one that would be interested in lowering their IT costs a bit. If anyone knows where I could get numbers based on what percentage of employees at those companies are wage versus salary, I’d like to see them.

See this blog and survey.

This article is of course for the criminal action and not any civil suits. Naturally, there is a proposed class action in the US for those who were victimized:

http://www.lieffcabraser.com/antitrust/lcd-antitrust.htm

The suit is for:
All persons and entities who, between January 1, 1996 and December 11, 2006, directly purchased a TFT-LCD Product in the United States from any defendant or any subsidiary or affiliate thereof, or any co-conspirator. Excluded from the Class are defendants, their parent companies, subsidiaries and affiliates, any co-conspirators, all governmental entities, and any judges or justices assigned to hear any aspect of this action.

From what it says the motion to dismiss based on lack of evidence has been thrown out. Will they settle? Will their lawyers eventually be able to squish it like a little bug? What will the payout be? That's anybody's guess. Might be worth getting on board if you were a firm that bought a ton of LCDs in that time though... I would imagine that if there was a payout, it would be per infraction rather than per customer, right? I admit that this is well outside my area of expertise.

I use to own a Dell Inspiron 5150 that had to have a motherboard replaced out of warranty. (I've since given it to my wife as she is a lighter user and it'll probably last longer with her). The most likely cause is a known but never acknowledged issue where with normal use the case wears against a component on the motherboard severing it. It's not the first such issue I've heard of.

I too have an Inspiron 5150, and I too had the motherboard replaced past the original warranty; however it was still free as a result of a class action lawsuit over this problem in the 5150.
http://www.lieffcabraser.com/dell-inspiron-2.htm

My check was about 1/10th of what they legitimately owed me.

Most people? How many people are "most people?" The general populace in China and India are in worse shape now than they were before the industrial revolution in many ways. Bill Gates, ironically, didn't start to make inroads with his charities until leaving Microsoft.

When you talk about companies, you're right about one thing: "whats more important is reputation." Unfortunately, companies can buy reputations, and not by good works.

Have you boycotted Pepsi yet? They pressured the US into invading a Chilean democracy and replacing it with a US puppet dictatorship.

How about Coke? Fertile farmland has been razed and poisoned to bottle Dasani.

Could it be that Sony is still selling products to you? If the first rootkit didn't convince you, I guess the second wouldn't either.

Of course you've avoided my former employer, General Electric, inheritors of the Love Canal who refused to acknowledge their responsibility for as long as they could possibly get away with it.

Oh yes, and of course accidents happen when you cut corners. We could point to Union Carbide, Dow Corning, and of course, Exxon. Or, you could go for the jugular and mention Monsanto, possibly the most evil corporation on the planet. (and that comes with some pretty prestigious neighbors!)

The point isn't these companies, and it's not even anti-globalisation. Fundamentally, I'm anti-people and anti-humanity. We have never, as a species (NOT considering individual exceptions here, because there are always those), shown that we can do anything good unless it's for short-term, personal gain. The only thing that capitalism and the free market economy bring to the table is power and efficiency. They make it easier for psychopaths to be rich, powerful, and immoral.

Fundamentally, humanity sucks. Capitalism allows the worst of it to seize control. That's about all we've accomplished in the five thousand-plus years since we started herding cows.

This post ignores the reality that Americans are not losing their jobs because there is anything wrong with their skills or education, but because of relative salary factors. The international exchange rate for one, the fact that H-1bs and others are underpaid (contrary to law) [see: http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/immigration /060925imm.html, http://www.lieffcabraser.com/lawsuitagainsttata.ht m ], and the lobbying by India and Nasscom in a bald-faced bid to replace us. There's LOTS more going on than any clear-headed comparison of relative value. It's a completely tilted playing field that Americans feel themselves slipping on.

This video corruption problem isn't only limited to the pro 6100 model line. There was also one other class action suit before this one: http://www.lieffcabraser.com/notebookcomplaint.htm Myself and a large number of others also have the problem on the 5105-Sxxx model line. Here is a huge thread on the issue: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=2 6673 Also a MSN group has been started to try and get a settlement for 5105 users here: http://groups.msn.com/TOSHIBA5105DISPLAYPROBLEM/me ssages.msnw If anyone else is having these issues on this model line (or for that matter other models not included in the two earlier class action suits please sign up!

Office 97 Service Release 1 (SR-1) is an update to Office 97 that makes it easier for users of different versions of Office to share files with one another. ...Of particular interest to Office 97 users, Office 97 SR-1 includes the Microsoft Word 6.0/95 Binary Converter for Word 97, which enables Word 97 users to save files in the Word 6.0/95 native file format.

And if you doubt MS illegally forced the bundling of Office with its OS via the vendor contracts, read this

So if you're a victim of Microsoft's negligence in making systems that can easily be converted to attack zombies, click here to contact that law firm. The most effective victims would be those who run Linux, because they're not subject to Microsoft's EULA. For them, it's a pure negligence issue. A Linux-based ISP or hosting service would be the poster child for such an action. They're being hammered on, they didn't sign any Microsoft EULA, and they're clearly suffering sizable damages due to Microsoft's negligence.

It's time for this to become a major legal issue.

So if you're a victim of Microsoft's negligence in making systems that can easily be converted to attack zombies, click here to contact that law firm. The most effective victims would be those who run Linux, because they're not subject to Microsoft's EULA. For them, it's a pure negligence issue. A Linux-based ISP or hosting service would be the poster child for such an action. They're being hammered on, they didn't sign any Microsoft EULA, and they're clearly suffering sizable damages due to Microsoft's negligence.

It's time for this to become a major legal issue.

Nope--there was nothing funny at all about the price-fixing in vitamins led by Hoffman-LaRoche. I know a manager at a local plant of Hoffman-LaRoche, and used to work (in a different industry) with a man who at one point was HLR's general manager of animal vitamins. So I've heard about the court case (which went on for years, and included anti-trust action in the EU and in the United States, and possibly elsewhere).

Is price-fixing in vitamins a big deal?
First, we're not talking about somebody trying to corner the market in One-A-Day tablets. We're talking about a small group of chemical companies colluding to fix the prices of (and markets for) vitamins that are included in food products. That's things like the Vitamin D in your milk. And--more significantly in terms of market size--it is the vitamin supplements included in animal feeds.

A brief discussion of animal feed
I am a geek--but I am a geek who is heavily involved in 4-H (non-U.S. readers: 4-H is a program for American youth [mostly farm youth] funded by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.) People who are feeding animals frequently want to feed a "complete" feed--a feed that includes all of the nutrients an animal requires. Example: dog food. You don't want Bowser running down kids in the neighborhood to supplement the meager protein requirement you feed him: you want him to get all the nutrition he requires from his bowl. In the same way, most cat owners don't want little Fiona sneaking out to hunt down the local rodent population just because there isn't enough "meat, and meat byproducts" in her Fancy Feast. (In case you're curious, a "meat byproduct" is what goes crunch when little Fiona does manage to eat one of the local rodents.)

Are you with me so far? If you live in the urban jungle you may not think of animal feeds beyond dogs and cats. And while that business is not small, there is also a huge business in other animal feeds. Think of cows, horses, chickens, and turkeys. In a nutshell, "chicken feed isn't chicken feed." Animal feeds are a multi-billion dollar business--and a major cost component for a feed manufacturer is the cost of the vitamin supplements included in the feed.

So the manufacturers get together...
It has been illegal for many years, in the United States, for manufacturers to compare prices or sales practices for common customers. But price and/or market collusion was not illegal in many other countries--and a number of multinational companies got a bit clever. If it wasn't illegal to collude on pricing in Switzerland (and in the 1980s it was not) you simply met with your counterparts in Switzerland, agreed on your prices and markets, and shook hands. According to a friend who was involved in some of these meetings (in Switzerland) everybody benefited: the people involved made their sales quotas, kept their profits up, and were spared the headaches of having to endure real competition. Sure--the customers (and ultimately the consumer) got rooked, but that was a "political issue." My friend (a U.K. citizen) assured me that Americans were far too zealous about such things. All of that ended when the U.S. government found out about it--Hoffman LaRoche, a Swiss company, settled for $500 million; BASF ("we don't make the products you buy, we just make them cost more") agreed to a fine of $250 million; other companies involved paid lesser amounts.

Want to know more?
One of the really cool things about the Web in general, and SlashDot in particular, is the ability to click on a link and go off on a tangent--learning something you'd never even thought of before. This link connects to a law firm involved in the matter.

I think he's talking about WalMart. http://www.lieffcabraser.com/walmart lawsuit.htm

Heh, that one is easy. :)

From the Law Firm filing suit (or whatever it is called, obviously IANAL)

and yes, they were found guilty;

link

another link

I think all reasonable human beings should be expected to draw the line somewhere. Here's why you shouldn't shop at Walmart, ever:

• They abuse their employees (see also NYT article)
• They destroy the social fabric of neighborhoods
• They engage in capricious censorship (see more here)
• They purchase from overseas suppliers with ZERO regard for the sweatshop conditions under which the materials were manufactured. Even Nike agreed this was reprehensible.

On May 10, 2000, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it has reached settlement agreements with Universal Music and Video Distribution, Sony Corp. of America, Time-Warner Inc., EMI Music Distribution and Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG), the five largest distributors of recorded music who sell approximately 85 percent of all compact discs (CDs) purchased in the United States to end their allegedly illegal advertising policies that affected prices for CDs. "The FTC estimates that U.S. consumers may have paid as much as $480 million more than they should have for CDs and other music because of these policies over the last three years," said FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky.

According to the FTC's complaints, the companies required retailers to advertise CDs at or above the "Minimum Advertised Price" (MAP) set by the distribution company in exchange for substantial cooperative advertising payments. The restrictions applied to all advertising, including television, radio, newspaper and signs and banners within the retailers' own stores. The restrictions even applied to advertising funded entirely by the retailer. Under the policies, large music retailers would lose millions of dollars a year if they failed to follow the MAP restrictions.

One record company executive fumed, ``For the past five years, this industry has been endlessly investigated by the government. They find nothing. And it costs us a fortune.'' The executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, added, ``It's a handy whipping boy.''

The facts speak differently:

"The FTC estimates that U.S. consumers may have paid as much as $480 million more than they should have for CDs and other music because of these policies over the last three years," said FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky. - from the decision against BMG, Sony, et al for collusion and price fixing, two years ago.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.