Monthly Archives: March 2011

When companies make privacy pledges, they need to honor them,”said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. This  is a tough settlement that ensures that Google will honor its commitments to consumers and build strong privacy protections into all of its operations.

The launch of Google Buzz fell short of our usual standards for transparency and user control letting our users and Google down. Google launched the Buzz social network in early 2010 inside millions of accounts in its Gmail email service in hopes of developing a competitor to Facebook. The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a formal complain with the FTC. The group called Wednesday’s settlement ” the most significant privacy decision by the commission to date”

” The FTC has sent a powerfull message to Google and the online data collection giants : We are watching you as you watch consumers,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, another privacy advocacy group. “The commission’s requirement that an independent outside privacy auditor is needed for Google for the next 20 years demonstrates what consumer advocates have been saying that Google and other online marketing companies are not being candid about their digital ad practises.”

“The launch of Google Buzz fell short of our usual standards for transparency and user control letting our users and Google down,” Alma Whitten, the company’s director of privacy, product and engineering, wrote in the post. The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a formal complaint with the FTC. The group called Wednesday’s settlement “the most significant privacy decision by the commission to date.”

The class action settlement will result in rebates for Farmers Insurance Group policyholders who were allegedly overcharged. At least, that’s how the huge settlement reached in a case involving Farmers Insurance Group works out, in the opinion of  Santa Monica based Consumer Watchdog.

Group work out, in the opinion of Santa Monica based Consumer Watchdog. The settlement calls for Farmers to send claim forms to consumers in the affected class, who would be entitled to rebates averaging about $35. The group contends the exchanges are just Farmers by another name. Consumer Watchdog’s founder, Harvey Rosendfield, says that means Farmers would end up keeping any money not paid directly to consumers. The points of the case was precisely to get the money from Farmers back to the exchanges and their customers. Because the exchanges’ rates are regulated by the state department of insurance, any money returned to them should show up, if indirectly, as lower insurance rates for Farmers costomers.

Rosenfeld also contends the claim form is little more than a device to discourage customers from making claims. So class action litigants have shifted to “claim Made” arrangements such as the Farmers deal. The Farmers insurance exchanges are technically co-ops owned by its policy holders. Rosenfield maintains that the distinction between the exchanges and Farmers Group is fiction. Girardi says the settlement team’s outreach to costomers will be aggressive, so he expects more than 50% of the customers to sign up and get their money.

In a few short hours, the yen smashed through the 80 yen-to-the-dollar barrier, peaking at 76.25 yen. That was the highest level the currency has hit since World War II. A stronger yen can wipe billions of dollars off corporate balance sheets. For example, Toyota loses 30 billion yen, roughly $380 million a year, for each uptick of the yen against the dollar.

The yen, considered a safe bet in times of crises, had been gradually strengthening over several trading sessions. With risk-adverse investors pushing the currency higher, it broke through 80 yen per dollar.

At the same time, the thin trading volumes exaggerated the overall impact. In September, Japan ruffled feathers when Tokyo intervened in currency markets, selling more than 2 trillion yen to weaken the currency. Already highly in debt, the Japanese government has to finance the recovery effort; it won’t want to pay weaken the yen as well.

Yen stabilizes after hitting record high
By Thursday afternoon, the dollar had stabilized around 79 versus the yen. A stronger home currency will make Japanese goods more expensive in overseas markets, to the detriment of Japan’s manufacturing industry.

At this point, most analysts see global risk as the dominating factor for the yen’s rise. If Japan is able to arrest the yen’s appreciation, it might allow the country to turn its attention to other matters: calming equity markets, bolstering government bonds and starting the rebuilding process.

The new austerity measures, designed by the minority Socialist government with input from the European Central Bank and the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, are intended to reassure nervous markets that the country will meet its debt payments.

Senior political figures appealed to Anibal Cavaco Silva, Portugal’s conservative president, to intervene to ensure the country was not left without an effective government ahead of the summit. Jose Socrates the embattled prime minister, has refused to follow Greece and Ireland in seeking a financial resue package. But opposition parties have refused to back a fourth austerity package, which could force the government to resign and trigger a snap election. Pedro Passos Coelho, leader of the centre right Social Democrats (PSD), the main oppositon party, rejected a government offer for talks on the measures, saying an early general election was “inevitable”.

Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, finance minister, said a political crisis would make it difficult for the government to finance its debt and could force Portugal to seek a financial rescue from the EU and International Monetary Fund.

Marcelo Robelo de Sousa, a senior PSD leader, called for a “grand coalition” between his party, the Socialist and the small conservative popular party to ensure the strongest possible commitment to a credible deficit reduction programme.