Blog

Should Facebook And Google Be Regulated As Credit Bureaus?

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Consumer Program Director

In a series of joint privacy petitions to the Federal Trade Commission beginning in 2006 and extended more recently to include behavioral targeting, as well as medical and mobile marketing, U.S. PIRG and the Center for Digital Democracy (sometimes with allies) have argued for greater scrutiny and regulation of the online digital marketing and behavioral targeting ecosystem that involves companies you do business with, social networking tools, third-party advertisers and other players. Today, in the New York Times, Professor Lori Andrews says that "Facebook is Using You."

Consumer Protection

House Transportation Bills Strikes First as Tragedy, Then as Dangerous Farce

Saturday, February 4, 2012

By | Phineas Baxandall

Senior Analyst for Tax & Budget Policy

The House introduced additional legislation proposing that new revenue for the Transportation Fund would come through increased volumes of oil drilling and that public transit would be kicked out of the transportation fund. This breaks with three decades of public transit being supported by a small portion of the federal gas tax. The House measure would instead funnel all these funds to highways, and leave mass transit to search for new money from Congress at a time when debt reduction rules require massive cuts to the general budget. If you were trying to make America as addicted to oil as possible, you might design legislation like this.

Transportation

Some Consumer News of the Week, In Case You Missed It

Friday, February 3, 2012

By | Ed Mierzwinski

Consumer Program Director

It's hard to keep up, so here are some key consumer news stories I am following that you may have missed this week. We start with CALPIRG Education Fund's new "Cell Phone Guide," look at the Consumer Federation of America's report on auto insurance discrimination and take you all the way to the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign survey on what's "good, bad and ugly (rats!)" in NYC subway stations.

Consumer Protection

Toxic Toys Found at Houston Port

Thursday, February 2, 2012

By | Nasima Hossain

Public Health Advocate

An article published in the Houston Chronicle on Monday, January 23rd, revealed that 25,000 children’s toys have been confiscated at the Port of Houston in the past two years, because the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found them to be unsafe.