The Complaints Department
The FTC Wrote a Rule Requiring That Cancelling a Subscription Be as Easy as Starting One. A Federal Court Vacated It Six Days Before It Took Effect, Over a Missing Cost Analysis.
The Federal Trade Commission finalised its revised Negative Option Rule in October 2024. It was known almost immediately as the click-to-cancel rule, because its central requirement was that a subscription be as easy to leave as it was to join. If a customer could sign up in four
AT&T Sold Unlimited Data, Then Began Slowing Customers Down After Two Gigabytes. Eight Years Later It Paid $60 Million, Which Came to About Seventeen Dollars Each.
AT&T sold unlimited data plans in the era when the iPhone was new and nobody had a reliable model of how much data a telephone would eventually consume. The plans were popular, the estimate turned out to be wrong, and in 2010 the company stopped offering them to
Saudi Arabia Banned Growing Alfalfa at Home in 2018 to Save Its Groundwater. It Grows the Alfalfa in Arizona Now, Where a State Lease Let It Pump as Much Water as It Wanted.
On 5 November 2018, Saudi Arabia banned the cultivation of green fodder within the kingdom. Growing alfalfa and similar forage crops in a desert had been consuming roughly seventeen billion cubic metres of water a year, of which about nine billion would be saved by no longer doing it. Domestic
For Forty Years the Safety of Leaded Gasoline Was Studied Almost Entirely by One Doctor Paid by the Companies That Made It. The Scientist Who Proved Him Wrong Was Left Off the Federal Panel on Lead.
Tetraethyl lead was added to gasoline from the 1920s to stop engines knocking. It worked, it was cheap, and it was patented, which distinguished it from the alternatives. The chemist who developed it, Thomas Midgley Jr., went on to develop chlorofluorocarbons, giving one man an unusually strong claim to having
One Man Failed to Light His Shoe on Fire in 2001. Americans Removed Their Shoes at Airport Security for the Next Nineteen Years, While Undercover Investigators Carried Weapons Past Screeners in 67 of 70 Attempts.
On 22 December 2001, Richard Reid boarded American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with explosives built into his shoes. He then failed to detonate them. He could not get the fuse to light, passengers and crew noticed a man attempting to set fire to his own footwear, and
Congress Moved Cold Medicine Behind the Pharmacy Counter in 2005 to Shut Down Meth Labs. It Worked, and Four Years Later Meth Was the Cheapest and Purest It Had Been Since the Law Passed.
The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act became law in 2005. It addressed a real and specific problem: methamphetamine was being manufactured in domestic kitchens, garages, and motel rooms, in quantities that made small-scale production a genuine public safety issue, out of pseudoephedrine bought from the cold and flu aisle. The
The Safety Commission Told Parents to Stop Using the Peloton Tread+ After a Child Died. Peloton Called the Warning Inaccurate and Misleading, Then Recalled 125,000 Machines Eighteen Days Later.
On 17 April 2021, the Consumer Product Safety Commission told the public to stop using the Peloton Tread+ if there were children or pets in the house. The commission does not usually do this. It has the authority to issue a unilateral warning without a company's agreement, and
Fisher-Price Consulted One Doctor, Who Was Not a Pediatrician, Before Selling the Rock 'n Play Sleeper. It Made at Least $200 Million and Was Linked to Roughly 100 Infant Deaths.
The Fisher-Price Rock 'n Play Sleeper went on sale in 2009. It was an inclined seat that held an infant at roughly thirty degrees, marketed for overnight sleep, and it sold on the strength of a simple observation: babies placed in it stopped crying and stayed asleep. Parents
The FTC Fined Vizio $2.2 Million in 2017 for Tracking 11 Million Smart TVs Without Consent. The Remedy Was a Consent Screen, and a Peer-Reviewed Study Later Found LG Sets Fingerprinting Whatever Is on Screen Every Fifteen Seconds.
In February 2017, Vizio agreed to pay $2.2 million to the Federal Trade Commission and the New Jersey Attorney General to settle charges that it had collected viewing data from roughly 11 million televisions without telling anyone. The software had been running since February 2014. It recorded what was
Two Separate Federal Courts Ruled Google an Illegal Monopolist Within Eight Months of Each Other. Google's Punishment So Far Is a Scheduling Requirement, and Its Profit That Year Was $132 Billion.
On August 5, 2024, Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in general search and general search text advertising. Eight months later, on April 17, 2025, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court
A U.S. Judge Let a Private Law Firm Prosecute the Lawyer Who Won a $9.5 Billion Pollution Verdict Against Chevron. That Firm Had Represented Chevron as a Client Three Years Earlier.
From 1964 to 1992, Texaco was the sole operator of oil concessions covering roughly 1,500 square miles of Ecuador's Lago Agrio region, in the heart of the Amazon. Plaintiffs' attorneys say the company discharged an estimated 16 to 18.5 billion gallons of "produced water&
Shell Paid a Nigerian Military Commander $1,364 Days After His Men Fired on Protesters Outside Its Offices in 1994. Ken Saro-Wiwa and Eight Others He Helped Convict Were Hanged, Then Pardoned Thirty Years Later to Restart Oil Production.
On March 3, 1994, Shell Petroleum Development Company paid Major Paul Okuntimo and 25 of his men a 30,000 Naira "honorarium" — about $1,364. Okuntimo commanded Rivers State's Internal Security Task Force, the unit formed weeks earlier specifically to handle unrest in Ogoniland. An internal