Privacy

Consumer Watchdog investigations and advocacy on data privacy, surveillance, AI, and your right to control your personal information.

Ex-lawmaker Embraces New Role As Campaign Watchdog

March 29, 2008 · Consumer Watchdog

<div class="articleBody"> SACRAMENTO, CA -- Some elected officials might have thought they'd have a friend atop the state's campaign watchdog agency when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger selected a former state...</div>

Arnold on toll road: “I’ll be back!”

March 28, 2008 · Mark Reback

When I saw that the Consulting Engineers & Land Surveyors PAC added another $10K last week to the $367,300 that they've already given to Arnold's campaign committees, it made me think a bit more about the recent developments concerning the...

Roasting a politician

March 27, 2008 · Carmen Balber

Let's say I’m alternating between amused and appalled by the <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/011388.html">note in today’s Capitol Alert</a> that Assemblywoman Nicole Parra has apparently run...

Revolving door sends chief of FTC to P&G

March 26, 2008 · Carmen Balber

Add number 572 to the list of reasons why people don’t believe the government is working for them any more. Deborah Platt Majoras, chair of the Federal Trade Commission and one of the country’s top consumer...

Caught in Verizon’s customer service hell

March 26, 2008 · John M. Simpson

I don't know which was worse: Repeatedly being told "we realize your time is important" as I waited for a live agent or the regular recycling of messages touting the very services I had already purchased and was calling about....

Fine official, but delayed

March 21, 2008 · Carmen Balber

The <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/802317.html">FPPC approved that $350,000 fine</a> on Senator Migden at an emergency meeting yesterday, with one dissension -- Commissioner Leidig wanted the whole payment at once instead of...

The real cost of pushing pills

March 21, 2008 · John M. Simpson

Big drug companies like to tell us that the reason pills cost so much is the high cost of research and development. They claim that's a chief reason it costs $800 million to bring a successful pill to market. Well, recent research shows it's...

Increase In Car-Buying Fee Has Advocates Up In Arms

March 19, 2008 · Consumer Watchdog

SACRAMENTO, CA -- By agreeing to carry a bill that would slightly raise a document fee that car buyers pay, Assemblyman Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, put himself squarely at odds with consumer groups to which he's endeared himself in his first year...

Special interests pay $3K for face time with CA politicians

March 17, 2008 · Carmen Balber

Sometimes I have to shake my head in amazement at the audacity of things that politicians do. No, not good old Client 9 - that one wasn't so shocking. But here's what the ...

Stem cell agency tone-deaf on salaries

March 14, 2008 · Consumer Watchdog

Even though California faces a budget crisis and the state appears to be sputtering into a recession with home mortgage foreclosures at a record, one state agency thinks its the perfect time to ...

Pay Hikes for Stem Cell Agency Leaders Draw Heat

March 14, 2008 · Consumer Watchdog

Future officials at California's fledgling stem cell research agency got a hefty raise this week. The board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine approved a top salary of $508,750 for the president and chair of the...

Do you know your Google score?

March 13, 2008 · Consumer Watchdog

I was blown away by a conversation I had with a Silicon Valley insider who told me the technologists at Google were keeping score not just on my browsing habits, but their connection to my buying habits. Apparently, we...