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FTC sends $5.6 million in refunds to Ring customers as part of video privacy settlement
The Federal Trade Commission is sending more than $5.6 million in refunds to consumers as part of a settlement with Amazon-owned Ring, which was charged with failing to protect private video footage from outside access

WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS AP business writer
April 25, 2024, 5:08 PM

NEW YORK -- The Federal Trade Commission is sending more than $5.6 million in refunds to consumers as part of a settlement with Amazon-owned Ring, which was charged with failing to protect private video footage from outside access.

In a 2023 complaint, the FTC accused the doorbell camera and home security provider of allowing its employees and contractors to access customers' private videos. Ring allegedly used such footage to train algorithms without consent, among other purposes.

Ring was also charged with failing to implement key security protections, which enabled hackers to take control of customers' accounts, cameras and videos. This led to “egregious violations of users’ privacy,” the FTC noted.

The resulting settlement required Ring to delete content that was found to be unlawfully obtained, establish stronger security protections and pay a hefty fine. The FTC says that it's now using much of that money to refund eligible Ring customers.

According to a Tuesday notice, the FTC is sending 117,044 PayPal payments to impacted consumers who had certain types of Ring devices — including indoor cameras — during the timeframes that the regulators allege unauthorized access took place.

Eligible customers will need to redeem these payments within 30 days, according to the FTC — which added that consumers can contact this case's refund administrator, Rust Consulting, or visit the FTC's FAQ page on refunds for more information about the process.

In a statement sent to The Associated Press, Ring said that bad actors took emails and passwords that were “stolen from other companies to unlawfully log into Ring accounts of certain customers" who used the same credentials on multiple sites back in 2019 — adding that the company promptly addressed this by notifying those it discovered to be "exposed in a third-party, non-Ring incident” and taking action to protect impacted accounts.



https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ftc ... -109627879

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 12:46 am

According to a Tuesday notice, the FTC is sending 117,044 PayPal payments to impacted consumers who had certain types of Ring devices — including indoor cameras — during the timeframes that the regulators allege unauthorized access took place.

Eligible customers will need to redeem these payments within 30 days, according to the FTC

Dan Price @DanPriceSeattle wrote: Amazon accessed private home videos via Ring security cameras without telling customers.

Its punishment? A $5.6 million fine, equal to 0.001% of Amazon's annual revenue.

That's just a cost of doing business.

Convicted rapist in Lousisana sentenced to physical castration in addition to 50-year prison sentenc

FOX 26 Houston
27 Apr 2024

Prosecutors say 50 years in prison wasn't enough for a man who raped a 14-year-old girl. The agreement they came up with was to castrate a rapist.

Rob Freund @RobertFreundLaw wrote: The LA Police Foundation sent a C&D letter to the seller of shirts that said "FUCK THE LAPD."

The Foundation said it holds exclusive IP rights to the word "LAPD."

The seller's response was succinct:

sugar magnolia wrote: ↑Thu May 02, 2024 5:51 pm And to think we knew him when.

sugar magnolia wrote: ↑Thu May 02, 2024 5:51 pm And to think we knew him when.

Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies? A lawsuit dared to ask
The ADA just settled an explosive legal case accusing the organization of betraying people with diabetes

Neil Barsky
Thu 2 May 2024 12.01 CEST

Acloak of silence has descended over the recent whistleblower lawsuit claiming that the American Diabetes Association, or ADA, accepted corporate money in return for recommending recipes that threatened the health of people with diabetes.

Elizabeth Hanna, the ex-ADA chief nutritionist who alleged that her former employer fired her over her refusal to endorse Splenda-filled salads, has quietly settled her case. In a statement to the Guardian, Hanna’s attorney, Lauren Davis, said that “the matter has been resolved”. No details were provided either by Davis or by a spokesperson for the ADA, which declined to comment.

For Hanna, accepting a settlement from the ADA was no doubt a simpler and less stressful and risky alternative to a trial, but for me and the country’s other 38 million people with diabetes, it is a letdown. What a great opportunity a trial would have been to expose the inner workings of the ADA, the patient advocacy organization up to its eyeballs in big-business funding.

I recently wrote about Hanna’s lawsuit as part of our series Death by Diabetes: America’s Preventable Epidemic. My view is that diabetes is an urgent national scandal. Over 100 million Americans have diabetes or prediabetes, and 100,000 die from the condition annually. In addition, every year hundreds of thousands of people with diabetes have limbs amputated or suffer blindness or kidney disease. Diabetes costs our country $400bn annually to treat.

And although type-2 diabetes is often reversible through a low-carbohydrate diet, the ADA and the pharmaceutical industry don’t seem very interested in acknowledging that. Instead, they promote a laundry list of corporate deals and pharmaceutical treatments that have failed to stem the disease’s lethal and expensive impact on American life.

Hanna’s complaint, filed last year in a New Jersey court, alleged a litany of wrongdoings by one of the country’s most powerful patient advocacy organizations. Hanna said that ADA higher-ups pressured her to approve recipes that included generous helpings of the artificial sweetener Splenda, despite research published in the ADA’s own scientific journal finding that artificial sweeteners may raise consumers’ risk of type-2 diabetes.




https://www.theguardian.com/global/comm ... on-lawsuit

Pennsylvania ARRESTS FARMERS AND IMPRISONS THEM WITHOUT DUE PROCESS

Yanasa TV
3 May 2024

As A Man Thinketh PODCAST - Making Sense of Agriculture and Society

Farmers in Pennsylvania Arrested and Detained Without Adequate Legal Procedures for Performing Ultrasounds on Cows.

0:00 Farmers arrested and imprisoned without fair legal procedures in Pennsylvania.
1:14 Men arrested for performing ultrasound pregnancy checks without a veterinary license.
2:55 Imprisoned for 30 days without trial or hearing, violating legal rights.
3:10 Ordered by a judge without naming them as parties in a crime or charging them with a crime.
3:39 Unfair imprisonment of farmers in Pennsylvania without proper legal process for performing ultrasounds on cows.
3:47 Imposed fines and cease and desist orders
4:24 Arrested and jailed without due process
5:05 No follow-up hearing or sentencing
6:34 Normal animal husbandry practices questioned
7:06 Farmers advertised as dairy experts, not veterinarians
7:24 Legal issues arise from licensing violations against farmers in Pennsylvania.
8:19 Pregnancy checks using ultrasound technology are considered normal husbandry practices.
9:21 State licensing board may not have jurisdiction over non-licensed individuals.
10:33 Complaints filed by veterinary board lack jurisdiction over farmers.
10:55 Farmers in Pennsylvania imprisoned without proper legal procedures and oversight.
10:59 Farmers jailed by Commonwealth Court without criminal trial, raising legality concerns.
11:06 Actions deemed civil, yet resulted in incarceration without due process.
11:35 Allegations of overreach and lack of proper court processes in the case.
13:46 Farmers' families express distress over the situation and lack of due process.
14:06 Absence of proper legal procedures and due process in the farmers' incarceration.
14:32 Perceived abuse of power by authorities
16:02 Concerns about government overreach

bob wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2024 10:20 pm Executive summary: Mike D 's client believes the original nastygram was sent in bad faith. So the client would like to know either why it wasn't bad faith or how big its check will be.

(f) Misrepresentations.—Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section—
(1) that material or activity is infringing, or
(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,
shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner’s authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.