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- Ye's 'Buyout' Of Parler Looks Very Much Like A Failed Company Taking Advantage Of Troubled Rich Guy
- FBI Email: Whole Lot Of Agents Think January 6 Capitol Raiders Did Nothing Wrong
- AT&T Hit With $23 Million Fine For Bribing Illinois Lawmaker
AT&T Hit With $23 Million Fine For Bribing Illinois Lawmaker
from the just-another-day-in-the-office dept
In just the last decade or so AT&T has been fined $18.6 million for helping rip off programs for the hearing impaired; fined $10.4 million for ripping off a program for low-income families; fined $105 million for helping “crammers” rip off their customers; fined $60 million for lying to customers about the definition of “unlimited” data; and accused of ripping off U.S. schools for decades.
The company’s also no stranger to using sleazy lobbying to get whatever it wants, whether that’s less competition, fewer consumer protections, rubber stamped mergers, or gigantic tax breaks that serve no useful public purpose. The vast, vast majority of the time the company faces absolutely no repercussion for its dodgy lobbying practices, especially those on the state level.
That luck recently ran out in Illinois, where the company was fined $23 million for bribing a state lawmaker’s ally in order to secure a key policy vote. According to a deferred prosecution agreement, the vote in question was a 2017 vote on Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) legislation that would have eliminated AT&T’s obligation to continue to provide landline service to all state residents.
AT&T of course wants to be free of having to provide dated landlines. Consumer groups are quick to note many of those landlines are used by old people who often can’t afford (or don’t understand how to use) cellular service, leaving them cut off from essential services and 911. They were also paid for on the back of millions in taxpayer subsidies, suggesting that taxpayers should have some say in the matter.
Instead of just making its case, AT&T used an intermediary lobbying firm to deliver $22,500 to former Illinois Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan to influence his vote:
AT&T allegedly used a lobbying firm as an intermediary to make the payment and disguise its true purpose. US Attorney John Lausch’s office filed a one-count criminal information in US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, charging AT&T Illinois with using an interstate facility to promote legislative misconduct. Former AT&T Illinois President Paul La Schiazza was indicted on five charges as a result of the same investigation.
As somebody that has covered AT&T for 22 years now, I know this kind of dirty pool happens pretty much constantly. In many states, AT&T all but owns the entirety of the state legislature, routinely literally writing state telecom policy and legislation. The vast, vast majority of the time, AT&T sees absolutely no penalty for the behavior, making this a rare occurrence.
AT&T’s no stranger to these kinds of tactics on the federal level either. In the last five years alone the company managed to secure a massive $42 billion tax break in exchange for doing nothing, gutted the FCC and its consumer protection authority, eliminated both net neutrality and broadband privacy rules, and is currently helping to gridlock the nomination of FCC nominee Gigi Sohn.
All to protect its regional telecom monopoly, stall competition, and ensure U.S. consumer protection enforcement is a feckless mess. You don’t get to enjoy six straight years of captured federal lawmakers without breaking more than a few of the nation’s already extremely pathetic lobbying rules (like that time AT&T paid Trump fixer Mike Cohen $600k to gain inside access to the Trump White House).
Filed Under: bribes, bribing, consumer protection, corruption, illinois, landlines, michael madigan, paul la schiazza, telecom
Companies: at&t
Louisville Cop Used Law Enforcement Database To Seek Female Targets To Hack For Sexually Explicit Content
from the access-without-oversight dept
Law enforcement officers have plenty of unfettered access to expansive databases containing plenty of personal information. This access is instrumental to law enforcement work, including ongoing investigations, attempts to locate wanted criminals, and the routine minutia of validating drivers licenses and registration.
The problem is there’s so little oversight of officers’ use of these databases. Over and over and over again, this access is abused for personal purposes. And abuse is far from uncommon. . .
After All That Nonsense… Republicans Aren’t Even Using The Spam Backdoor They Forced Google To Create
from the you-did-what-now? dept
Do you remember all the nonsense from earlier this year, in which executives from the Republicans’ favorite spamming operation misread a study about how various email providers handled political mailings and absolutely flipped out? The study didn’t say what they claimed it said: that Google was nefariously sending GOP emails to spam filters. It showed that in an untrained inbox, Google was more likely to declare Republican political messages as spam than Democratic political messages (the same study also showed the opposite for Outlook and Yahoo Mail — those sent more Dem emails to spam than Republicans, but nobody complained about that). Of course, the same study showed that this differential in Gmail went away for anyone who trained their spam filter.
Of course, there was also the fact that Republican emails also… are way more spamlike. Even some of their biggest supporters admit that. Also, their tech talent is weaker, as we noted, . .
The Word ‘Emoji’ Is A Protectable Trademark?
from the emoji-emoji-emoji dept
Emoji Co. GmbH has registered trademarks in the dictionary word “Emoji.” They mostly are a licensing organization, and their registrations are in a wide range of classes: “from articles of clothing and snacks to ‘orthopaedic foot cushions’ and ‘[p]atient safety restraints.’” (Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen Emojico-branded patient safety restraints). Indeed, the court essentially questions the entire basis of Emojico’s licensing business, saying:
Given the ubiquity of the word “emoji” as a reference to the various images and icons used in electronic communications, it is especially important that Plaintiff come forward with evidence demonstrating that the term is also known as an identifier of Plaintiff as a source of goods….Other than its say-so, Plaintiff offers no evidence demonstrating, for instance, that consumers actually associate Plaintiff with emoji products such as those offered for sale by Defendants
(The absence of secondary meaning sounds like a major problem with Emojico’s case, one of several problems the court spots and then essentially ignores).
So, was justice served in this case? On the one hand, it’s all for show, because Emojico will almost certainly collect zero dollars of this damages award. On the other hand, it’s a terrifying reminder of how things can go wrong in default proceedings, when the court is hearing only the plaintiff’s unrebutted advocacy. The true victims of this court’s error, and of Emojico’s litigation campaign, are consumers who love emoji-themed items but increasingly will find it harder to acquire those products in online marketplaces because Emojico keeps lawfaring vendors out of the marketplace or forcing vendors to use terms that consumers don’t recognize. Even if the defendants didn’t make the arguments, the judge should have listened to her instincts and intervened on the consuming public’s behalf. All of us, except possibly for Emojico and its lawyers, are poorer because she didn’t.
Reposted with permission from the Technology & Marketing Law Blog.
Chinese City Decides LARPers Are Next In Line For Government Censorship
from the let's-set-some-concrete-rules-for-pretending dept
The Chinese government is being weird again. Most of this weirdness springs naturally(?) from its desire to suppress dissent and control the narrative.
That desire sometimes leads to bizarre outcomes, like the brief banning of the letter “N” on social media platform Weibo. The government’s concerns were related to online displeasure with Xi Jinping’s moves towards becoming president for life. The Communist Party removed the “no more than two consecutive terms” language from the law and the government believed the letter “N” might refer to “n terms in office,” with “n” possibly being a reference to more than two.
Another censorship effort led to the banning of certain English words in Chinese-developed mobile games. Not all English words, mind you. And not even the bad ones (you know the ones I mean). But words like “mission start” and “warning,” which are common gaming terms but also ones the government perceived as somehow threatening.
Speaking of intruding on the gaming world, the Chinese government took its direct regulation of all content up a notch by sending out online tax collectors to collect taxes on virtual goods owned by gamers.
Now, it’s moving from the online world to the real world, again targeting certain gamers for additional restrictions, hassles, and, one presumes, possible jailing. Granted, it’s not the entire government. . .
Ye’s ‘Buyout’ Of Parler Looks Very Much Like A Failed Company Taking Advantage Of Troubled Rich Guy
from the this-is-just-kind-of-sad dept
Ye, formerly Kanye West, has had quite a week or so. He got locked out of both his Instagram and Twitter accounts for posting anti-semitic nonsense. Immediately following that, he went on the Drink Champs podcast/video show and spouted even more such nonsense. He’s continuing to spew similar nonsense in other interviews as well. Indeed, it seems like anyone putting him on right now is really exploiting someone who is dealing with some pretty serious issues.
I’m not one to diagnose someone randomly, though Ye has been open about his bipolar diagnosis and the fact that it is a constant effort to manage the condition.
But then things got even stranger on Monday, as Parlement Technology, the parent company of Parler, announced that Ye was now “buying” Parler. He’s not buying Parlement, which was formed when Parler tried to expand beyond its flailing social network by purchasing Dynascale and claiming that it was now building “uncancelable” cloud services (they’re not the first to try this. They’ve also dabbled in NFTs and other nonsense, none of which seems to be doing well).
So the deal with Ye is not to buy the company, but to unload the flop of a social media platform that has very few users left as the market for “Twitter-but-for-assholes-removed-from-Twitter” was already pretty small, and is now divided between way too many platforms: Parler, Gab, Gettr, Truth Social, and some other wannabes.
Over at the Verge, they’re reporting that Parlement has been trying to offload Parler for a few weeks now at astronomical prices, while noting that basically no one uses the site any more: somewhere around 50,000 daily active users, which is a rounding error that Elon Musk would sue over on Twitter.
According to a source familiar with the discussions, Parler’s parent company, Parlement, has been trying to offload its social media platform to potential buyers over the last few weeks. One prospective buyer described Parlement’s asking price for the platform as wildly inflated, and said they were stunned by the site’s low number of daily active users.
[….]
The service currently maintains around 50,000 daily active users, a source familiar told The Verge, compared to hundreds of millions for even moderately sized networks like Twitter and Snapchat.
Put all that together, and this really seems like an opportunistic Parlement taking advantage of Ye, who is upset about his treatment on Instagram and Twitter, who has money to burn, and was talked into taking on this albatross of a failed social media platform to pretend to be creating a site for “free speech.”
Instead, this just looks to be a sad situation, especially given how Ye has been lashing out in his nonsensical rants about others trying to take advantage of him, when the reality is that it’s now that he’s actually being taken advantage of.
Filed Under: anti-semitism, content moderation, kanye west, social media, ye
Companies: parlement technologies, parler
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