Cody Taylor

Anonymous writes “A non-government study in the Netherlands found that 4.7 million Dutch Internet users 15 years and older downloaded hacked and pirated DVDs, games, and music in the last 12 months — or, about 25 percent of the Dutch population. But there may be an upside to this unauthorized sharing/distribution: ‘The average [Dutch] downloader buys more DVDs, music, and games than people who never download,’ with illegal downloaders representing 45 percent of consumers who purchase content legally, according to the Institute For Information Law, which administered the study.”

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coondoggie writes “A federal court today spanked two telemarketers with some .2 million in civil penalties for violating the Federal Trade Commission’s Do Not Call Rule. According to the FTC, the companies called consumers whose phone numbers were on the Do Not Call Registry without having obtained their express written agreement or having an ‘established business relationship’ with them. One group’s telemarketers also allegedly abandoned many calls, by failing to connect the calls to a sales representative within two seconds after consumers answered, as required by law, the FTC stated. The cases were filed by the Department of Justice on behalf of the FTC.”

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DJRumpy sends word that the US Senate has voted to delay the switch to digital TV until June. “The transition date would move to June 12 from February 17 under the bill that was fueled by worries that viewers are not technically ready for the Congressionally mandated switch-over. It would also allow consumers with expired coupons, available from the government to offset the cost of a converter box, to request new coupons. The government ran out of coupons earlier this month, and about 2.5 million Americans are on a waiting list for them.”

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The campaign, called “Free Your Phone,” asks consumers to sign the EFF’s petition to the U.S. Copyright Office for an exemption, as well as asking consumers to share their stories about locked cell phone frustrations. As the EFF says, rather than protecting copyrighted material, the locks instituted by cell phone manufacturers and carriers are buil

theodp writes “Imagine a technology that lets you pay for products just by waving your cellphone over a reader. You wouldn’t have to if you lived in Japan, where people have been using it for the last five years to pay for everything from train tickets to groceries to candy in vending machines. While nearly everyone who’s tried it has liked this form of payment, consumers in the United States won’t be able to wave-and-pay anytime soon: The companies that must work together to give the technology to the masses can’t agree on how to split the resulting revenue.”

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