Archives: News
Archive of News from WirelessEd, in reverse chronological order.
- Headlines | Bank regulators urge ‘responsible use’ of alternative lending data. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Lenders and regulators are looking at how data beyond a basic credit score could be used to improve underwriting practices, for example by analyzing bank…
- Headlines | 190 million Americans shopped Thanksgiving weekend, mostly online. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
A record 189.6 million Americans went shopping over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, the National Retail Federation said Tuesday, and most of them did their spending…
- Headlines | Holiday scams are heavy on naughty, lacking in nice. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. But for consumers, it’s also the most dangerous. From gift card rackets to online fraud, consumers are…
- Headlines | Cyber Monday is usurping Black Friday, changing retailers’ offers. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
While many brands lock in their Black Friday plans months in advance—and commit to print ads and television spots promoting their predetermined doorbuster deals—Cyber Monday…
- Headlines | Consumer watchdog downplaying a major Obama-era tool. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The director of the country’s primary consumer watchdog, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), downplayed the role of the complaint database in its operations and…
- Headlines | Police can keep Ring camera video forever, share with anyone. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Police officers who download videos captured by homeowners’ Ring doorbell cameras can keep them forever and share them with whomever they’d like without providing evidence…
- Headlines | AT&T to pay $60 million over misleading ‘unlimited’ data plans. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
AT&T agreed to a $60 million settlement over allegations it misled more than 3.5 million customers by charging them for "unlimited" data plans while reducing…
- Headlines | Apple, TikTok draw congressional rebuke for skipping hearing. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Apple and TikTok took a lashing Tuesday for skipping a congressional hearing meant to explore the tech industry and its ties to China, an absence…
- Headlines | Facebook takes broad lashing at congressional hearing. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Congressional lawmakers delivered a broad lashing of Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, sniping at his company’s plans to launch a digital currency called Libra, its pockmarked…
- Headlines | In House antitrust hearing, lawmakers focus on harms to privacy. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
House lawmakers on Friday pressed experts on how the market power of major tech platforms could hurt consumer privacy, showing that an antitrust investigation into…
- Headlines | Does your toothbrush have an app yet?. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
New technology is creating some excitement in the formerly ho-hum world of dental care.
{/exp:ce_str:ing} - Headlines | California law blocks debt collectors from emptying your bank account. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill that will prevent debt collectors from emptying Californians’ bank accounts.
The bill — SB 616 — doesn’t…
- Headlines | Debunking a credit score myth: Use less than 30% of your credit limit. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The top two factors that determine your credit score are your payment history and the amount you owe. If your credit card limit was $1,000,…
- Headlines | Appeals court ruling upholds FCC’s canceling of net neutrality rules. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled in favor of the Federal Communications Commission and upheld its repeal of Obama-era net neutrality protections, issuing a…
- Headlines | A no-internet, just-for-kids cell phone is here. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Much to our chagrin, it seems like the age where kids get their first cell phone is skewing younger by the day. And while it's…
- Headlines | Streaming wars scorecard: What to watch and how much it will cost. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
In the coming months, Disney (DIS), WarnerMedia and Comcast (CCZ)are all launching their own streaming platforms to compete with the likes of Netflix (NFLX) and…
- Headlines | Keeping consumer complaint database public is big win for consumers. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has decided it won’t remove from public view a complaint database that consumers use to ask for help in resolving…
- Headlines | These apps may have told Facebook about your sex life. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Your best friend may not know when you last had sex, but it’s possible that Facebook does.
At least two menstruation-tracking apps, Maya and MIA…
- Headlines | Lawmakers want to give us back the right to sue companies. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee passed a bipartisan bill, the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act, that would end forced arbitration.
A recent academic…
- Headlines | How to complain and get results. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
To breach the walls and successfully resolve your complaint, you must use the three p’s: patience, persistence and politeness. Don’t expect an instant fix, and…
- Headlines | Student allegedly denied U.S. entry over friends’ social media. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Ismail B. Ajjawi touched down at Boston Logan International Airport on Friday night, prepared to begin his freshman year at Harvard University. The 17-year-old Palestinian…
- Headlines | Major phone service providers agree to plan to slow robocallers. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and nine other phone service providers reached a deal with 51 attorneys general across the country to install call-blocking technology. But the…
- Headlines | Why aren’t older people using Lyft and Uber?. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Seniors need transportation alternatives more than ever, but many are intimidated by ride-hailing apps.
{/exp:ce_str:ing} - Headlines | I shared my phone number. I learned I shouldn’t have. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Our mobile phone numbers have become permanently attached to us because we rarely change them, porting them from job to job and place to place.…
- Headlines | Instagram is changing the way people buy things. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
In March, Instagram introduced a new checkout option that allows customers to purchase products directly off a handful of companies' pages within its app.
Instagram…
- Headlines | A guide to picking the right phone plan. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Let’s make one thing clear: You can’t beat the house. Telecommunications is one of the world’s most lucrative industries, and wireless carriers will turn a…
- Headlines | House passes anti-robocall bill. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The House on Wednesday took a major step toward cracking down on illegal robocalls by passing legislation allowing for tougher penalties against the scammers who generate billions of unwanted calls…
- Headlines | Your college major may affect your ability to get a loan. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
When students choose where to attend college and what subject to major in, they can expect those decisions to have an impact on certain aspects…
- Headlines | FTC orders Facebook to add oversight of data practices. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Facebook on Wednesday was ordered to create new layers of oversight for its collection and handling of users’ personal data by the Federal Trade Commission,…
- Headlines | T-Mobile says it can’t be sued by users. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
T-Mobile is already facing a class-action lawsuit that's making its way through the court system to hold the company accountable for its behavior. There's just…
- Headlines | FTC approves Facebook fine of about $5 billion. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The Federal Trade Commission has approved a fine of roughly $5 billion against Facebook for mishandling users’ personal information, according to three people briefed on…
- Headlines | Five things to avoid on Amazon Prime Day. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
It’s that time of the year—Prime Day is July 15 and 16. The event has turned into summer’s version of Black Friday, a shopping frenzy that…
- Headlines | U.S. proposes barring big tech from offering financial services. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
A proposal to prevent big technology companies from functioning as financial institutions or issuing digital currencies has been circulated for discussion by the Democratic majority…
- Headlines | Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple under fire by Congress. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Silicon Valley will have a big presence in Washington, D.C., this week as big tech companies get ready for the spotlight, with several high-profile Congressional…
- Headlines | How to fight the spies in your Chrome browser. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The main lesson: If Google is a data vampire, Chrome is its fangs. For most people, not using a browser made by an advertising company…
- Headlines | Crackdown targets robocallers. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Federal and state authorities announced that they had targeted dozens of robocallers accused of placing an estimated 1 billion spam calls to consumers, a crackdown…
- Headlines | ThinkFinance to pay back $39.7 million on payday loans. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
A Fort Worth financial firm will cancel its outstanding loans and pay nearly $40 million to consumers after engaging in an alleged payday lending operation…
- Headlines | States sue over Sprint, T-Mobile merger. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
A $26 billion T-mobile/Sprint merger deal seemed to be moving forward in recent weeks, when the head of the Federal Communications Commission gave it his…
- Headlines | Maine’s strict new internet privacy protection. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The new law, which goes into effect on July 1, 2020, would require internet service providers to ask for permission before they sell or share…
- Headlines | Chase: Arbitration’s ‘better’ for consumers. Nope, say researchers. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
JPMorgan Chase is notifying more than 40 million credit card holders that from now on they’ll have to arbitrate any disputes, forgoing the option of…
- Headlines | Senators say debt collection proposal puts industry ahead of consumers. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
More than 20 U.S. Senators are calling on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to reconsider a proposal that would allow debt collectors to send unlimited…
- Headlines | A storm is brewing over big tech. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Google and Amazon have thrived as American regulators largely kept their distance. That may be changing.
Politicians on the right and left are decrying the…
- Headlines | Mired In medical debt? Federal rule changes proposed for bill collectors. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
This month, the CFPB proposed a rule to frame what debt collectors are allowed to do when pursuing many types of overdue bills. The proposed…
- Headlines | Do you know who your iPhone is talking to?. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Apple says, “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.”
But a Washington Post privacy experiment showed 5,400 hidden app trackers guzzled our data—and many…
- Headlines | How to limit iPhone app tracking. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Apps tracking your activity—even while you sleep—is a pervasive practice, including on Apple’s iPhone.
What can you do to limit some of it?
{/exp:ce_str:ing} - Headlines | All the ways Google tracks you—and how to stop it. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
You're probably aware that Google keeps tabs on what you're up to on its devices, apps, and services—but you might not realize just how far…
- Headlines | Is revenge porn protected by the Constitution?. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Revenge porn—criminal cyberoffenses, engendered by emerging technology—enable abusers to threaten, harass and coerce their victims. Appeals courts are beginning to take up cases involving the constitutionality of…
- Headlines | FCC wants phone companies to start blocking robocalls by default. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
The Federal Communications Commission is proposing to push phone companies to "block unwanted calls to their customers by default."
This would be a major change…
- Headlines | How to fix mistakes on your credit report that could cost thousands. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Complaints about credit reporting, credit repair services and issues such as errors on individual consumer credit reports made up 43% of all the complaints made to the…
- Headlines | 5 things that changed for consumers since Trump became president. {/exp:ce_str:ing}
Every president brings change. Laws change. Regulations change. The direction of the country changes. That’s what happens. But drop your political lens for a moment.
…
2019
December
06
04
02
November
27
23
20
06
October
24
21
16
10
03
02
September
25
23
21
18
12
August
31
28
23
21
15
05
July
26
25
24
16
15
June
27
20
12
07
06
03
May
30
29
28
20
16
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