Privacy

Charter Buyout of Time Warner Bad for Customers Says Santa Monica Consumer Group

May 28, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p><span class="timesDatelineBlack">May 28, 2015</span> -- Charter Communications’ bid to buy Time Warner Cable for $55.3 billion is a bad deal for customers, said the founder of Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog.</p> <p>“Another merger? These mergers only benefit the top CEOs; they never benefit the consumers,” said Harvey Rosenfield, who founded the advocacy group in 1985, in an interview this week with a Los Angeles radio station.</p>

Bill Would Require California Doctors To Check Drug Database

May 28, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p><span class="dateline">SACRAMENTO, Calif.</span> -- California doctors would be required to check a statewide database before prescribing narcotics under a bill moving through the state Legislature.</p> <div class="clearfix" id="story-target"> <div id="content-body-16194140-22533030"> <p>Currently it is voluntary to check the state's Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System, known as CURES.</p> <p>The database lets doctors make sure patients are not getting narcotics from multiple physicians and aren't taking harmful combinations of drugs.</p>

Charter Communications Close To $55 Billion Deal To Buy Time Warner Cable: Report

May 26, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>Fresh off its failed merger with Comcast, Time Warner Cable reportedly was speeding Monday toward a link with Charter Communications for a whopping $55 billion.</p> <p>Charter and its billionaire backer John Malone offered to pay $195 per share in the blockbuster deal, with <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-25/charter-said-to-near-deal-for-time-warner-cable-at-195-a-share">$100 coming from cash and the rest from stock</a>, Bloomberg News reported.</p>

Will Google Suck Up Even More Data About Us?

May 22, 2015  ·  John M. Simpson

<p>It looks as though Google is muscling into a position where it can gather even more information about us as we<img class=" alignright size-full wp-image-2872" alt="" src="https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/images_iot_2.png" style="width: 225px; height: 199px; float: right;" width="1058" height="934" /> increasingly connect “smart” devices to the Internet, creating the so-called Internet of Things (IoT)</p>

PD Editorial: A Tech-Savvy Approach To Saving Lives

May 20, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p class="BodyText-BodyText_Cap_RR">Almost four dozen Americans die every day from prescription pain-killer overdoses.</p> <p class="BodyText-BodyText_RR">These deaths coincide with a sharp increase in the number of prescriptions written for narcotic pain-killers such as Vicodin, OxyContin and Norco.</p>

YouTube Kids Rife With Even More Inappropriate Content

May 19, 2015  ·  John M. Simpson

<p>Google’s <a href="http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2015/02/youtube-kids.html">YouTube Kids </a>is even worse than we thought.

Google’s YouTube Kids App Isn’t That Kid-Friendly According to Consumer Groups

May 19, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>In April, a group of consumer advocate groups including The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Children Now, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Watchdog, and Public Citizen called on the Federal Trade Commission to open up an investigation against Google’s YouTube Kids app.

Advocacy Groups Say YouTube Kids App Contains Explicit, Profane Videos

May 19, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>Google came under fire Tuesday after a string of children's advocacy groups filed an update to their Federal Trade Commission complaint alleging the YouTube Kids App contains content that "would be extremely disturbing" and "potentially harmful" for young children.</p>

YouTube Kids App Reported To FTC For Featuring Videos With Adult Content

May 19, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>YouTube Kids, YouTube’s<a href="http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/23/hands-on-with-youtube-kids-googles-newly-launched-child-friendly-youtube-app/"> initial entry</a> into making its video-sharing service more accessible to parents and their children, has come under fire yet again.

State Pressured To Explain Why it Revoked Blue Shield’s Not-for-Profit Exemption

May 18, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<div class="block__content block--article__content" id="page_0_content_0_BlockContent"> <p>A consumer advocacy organization has launched a campaign to get state officials to explain why they revoked Blue Shield of California's tax-exempt not-for-profit status last year.</p> <p>Consumer Watchdog also wants the state to explain why Californians didn't learn of the decision for seven months.</p>

Human Error Caused Crashes: Four Self-Driving Cars Being Tested On California Roads Have Been In Fender-Benders

May 17, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>The riskiest thing about self-driving vehicles may turn out to be the human drivers of other vehicles.</p> <p>Four of the nearly 50 self-driving cars undergoing tests on California roads since September, when the state began issuing permits to auto companies, have been involved in crashes.</p> <p>But the cars, three owned by Google and one by Delphi, were in collisions caused By human error.</p> <p>Driver inattention was behind the collisions involving the Google cars, said Katelin Jabbari, a spokeswoman for the tech giant, which is developing a fleet of autonomous vehicles.</p>

Google Says Its Driverless Cars Are Ready To Hit The Road In California

May 16, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p><strong>The company has not yet applied for the permit the cars will need, however</strong></p> <p>Google says its fully autonomous pod-shaped cars are ready to roll but the company has not yet applied for the permit it will need to hit the road in California.</p> <p>Google has been testing Lexus SUVs retrofitted with its self-driving software and hardware for quite some time but it is now itching to take its fully autonomous prototypes out for a ride.</p>