Finally, no more Miss Cleo commercials as the Federal Trade Commission steps into to prosecute late-night TV's most popular psychic peddler. At first I thought if you dumb enough to call a psychic line, the gov't shouldn't be stepping in to block the charges, as the article notes the average call was $60, but they also note misleading "free reading" claims and crooked billing procedures. If you're making that kind of money, why resort to underhanded business practices? Even more obvious: why didn't she see this coming and change their ways?
posted by mathowie on Feb 19, 2002 - 24 comments

FTC ends investigation of DoubleClick and finds no evidence of wrongdoing. I don't know about you, but I feel cheated. Don't forget to opt out of their cookie-bending racket.
posted by mathowie on Jan 23, 2001 - 16 comments

Although this story doesn't sound like much, the FTC coming down on Time Warner, the effects could be great. Time Warner has agreed to ban their minimum pricing on featured new CDs, admitting that for the last seven years, these compact discs have been artificially overpriced. Do you think making CDs cheaper for the first time in years had anything to do with all the attention mp3s have been getting from consumers?
posted by mathowie on May 10, 2000 - 5 comments