NEW YORK (AP) — The Home Depot Inc. says hackers stole 53 million email addresses in addition to the payment card data it previously disclosed. It says the hackers accessed its network from a third-party vendor.
The Atlanta retailer disclosed in September one of the largest data breaches, affecting 56 million debit and credit cards between April and September.
Home Depot said Thursday it's warning its customers to be on the lookout for phishing scams.
Of all the crazy things people have said about former AIG chief Maurice "Hank" Greenberg's lawsuit against the government, the craziest was that he just might win.
It's sounding less crazy all the time.
The possibility of a Greenberg victory at trial, which began six weeks ago is no longer unthinkable. According to a Bloomberg report, Greenberg has a real shot of winning his argument that the U.S. government bailed out the insurance firm he founded on "unfair" terms. Greenberg and his star lawyer, David Boies, may walk away with a $25 billion judgment in the case.
As Buzzfeed’s Matthew Zeitlin pointed out, $25 billion is twice the value of all housing aid given through TARP, the highly-criticized relief program that was supposed to help out troubled mortgage holders. It’s also equal to the total value of TARP money set aside for housing that remains unspent. The talking points write themselves.
If Greenberg wins, “the howling will start,” says Susan Webber told Bloomberg, who blogs under the pseudonym Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism.
A legal ruling that AIG shareholders were victims of the government bailout that saved those same shareholders' stake in the company from being worth zero would be galling. If Greenberg walks away with billions, the public outrage will hit 11. No one argues that his firm could have survived without government intervention.
Worse still, if Greenberg wins, it seems that he will do so, in part, for a completely pointless reason.
Bloomberg reports that the judge in the case, Thomas Wheeler, “appears intent on writing an opinion that will guide what regulators are permitted to do in the next financial crisis.” Elliott Stein, a legal analyst at Bloomberg, says Wheeler “sees a real absence of established precedent about what the government can do.”
This is a weird thing for a federal judge to think, because the law is now established on this topic. It wasn't at the time of the AIG bailout, which is why Greenberg raises the issue of fairness and Wheeler seems sympathetic to it.
The government's response is, essentially, it was 2008 and we did what we had to.
Whatever you think of these arguments, precedent, in the form of a judicial opinion, is no longer needed.
As The Huffington Post wrote when the trial started, the Dodd-Frank financial reform act is very clear about the structure of future bailouts. It alters the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending powers to prohibit an individual firm from being bailed out. Instead, any extraordinary lending must to made to a broad class of firms. The rate of that lending must be the Fed's discount rate (the rate at which the Fed routinely lends to banks). Under these rules, AIG could not be bailed out in the way it was. Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute wrote in 2012, “Dodd-Frank goes out of its way to pre-commit against further bailouts” aimed at individual companies. If in the next crisis, Dodd-Frank doesn't provide enough authority, Congress can simply pass a bill that provides it.
If Wheeler sides with Greenberg, he will unnecessarily clarify what Congress has already codified, and could supersede if necessary, while recklessly cause public outrage.
Virgin Galactic may be badly bruised, but it's not throwing in the towel. Just days after its SpaceShipTwo spaceplane crashed during a test flight over California's Mojave Desert, the Las Cruces, N.M.-based space tourism company said it would continue building another commercial spaceplane.
On its website, the company called the fatal crash a "tragic setback," adding:
"We are continuing to build the second SpaceShipTwo (serial number two), which is currently about 65 percent complete and we will continue to advance our mission over the coming weeks and months...We owe it to all of those who have risked and given so much to stay the course and deliver on the promise of creating the first commercial spaceline."
The National Transportation Safety Board has begun an investigation into the cause of the crash, which killed copilot Michael Alsbury and injured pilot Peter Siebold. Preliminary findings suggest that Alsbury deployed SpaceShipTwo's reentry system prematurely, causing the spaceplane to break apart.
Michael Bloomberg critics may be disappointed to learn that they won't be able to use BloombergFail.nyc to slam the former mayor. That's because Bloomberg owns BloombergFail.nyc and a host of other domain names.
A law firm representing the former three-term New York City mayor bought up hundreds of .nyc domains last month, Domain Name Wire reported Monday.
There are the domain names you'd expect (mayormichaelbloomberg.nyc and bloombergphilanthropy.nyc) and names that heap praise on the former mayor (americalovesbloomberg.nyc and mikekicksbutt.nyc.) But the law firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, also bought up a series of negative domain names, seemingly in an effort to pre-empt Internet trolls and Bloomberg critics from buying the domains themselves.
There are, for example, 13 domain names dealing specifically with Bloomberg's height, including:
At least two domain names dealing with Bloomberg essentially having bought a third term as mayor:
At least four domains containing a certain expletive:
And then a slew of other hilarious domains, including:
Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP didn't immediately respond to The Huffington Post's request for comment Tuesday, but a representative for Bloomberg told Business Insider that "this appears to be overly-aggressive legal due diligence, and we're only keeping the straightforward addresses."
You can read the entire, glorious list of Bloomberg domains here.
Bloomberg announced the creation of the .nyc domain last year, when he was still mayor. He said it would allow local businesses and residents to "identify themselves as connected to New York City, one of the world's strongest and most prestigious brands."
Registration for .nyc domains started this summer and is available only to those with a physical address in the five boroughs. You can register your very own domain here.
Note: Some language in this post has been amended.
The next time you sit down for some shrimp scampi, beware of a bait-and-switch.
Much of the shrimp sold in grocery stores and restaurants across the U.S. isn't exactly what it says on the package or the menu, a new survey claims. Using DNA testing, the marine conservation group Oceana sampled 143 shrimp products from U.S. stores and restaurants and found that as many as 30 percent misrepresented the crustaceans they contained.
For example, the researchers found that some shrimp labeled as being caught from the Gulf of Mexico were actually whiteleg shrimp raised in farms.
In other cases, one species was substituted for another. Samples sold as royal red shrimp or rock shrimp, two delicacies known for their lobster-like flavor, frequently turned out to be more common species. The researchers found three store-bought bags of alleged shrimp that in fact contained crustaceans that couldn't be genetically identified. One of those bags also contained a banded coral shrimp -- a critter normally sold as an aquarium pet, not as food.
While the researchers' sample was limited to a cross-section of just 111 vendors on the Eastern Seaboard, the Gulf Coast and the Oregon shore, the findings illustrate how difficult it is for seafood lovers to know which creatures they're actually eating. Last year, another Oceana study found that one in three fish sold in markets is mislabeled.
In some cases, shrimp may be misidentified by fishers or factories because different shrimp species are difficult to tell apart by sight, especially once processors have peeled them. In other cases, though, unscrupulous sellers may be slapping marketable labels like "wild" or "Gulf" on cheaper, farmed seafood.
High-end rock shrimp (left) vs. farmed whiteleg shrimp (right).
"This is a big issue, which has economic, sanitary and environmental consequences," said Jorge Barros Velazquez, a food science professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, who was not involved in the Oceana study. In 2007, Velazquez and his colleagues conducted a similar shrimp survey in Spain, and found the same problem: Of the shrimp samples they tested, 25 percent were mislabeled.
Widespread mislabeling presents a problem for seafood lovers who want to buy wild shrimp instead of farmed because it's more environmentally friendly or because they believe it may be healthier. Mislabeling also undermines people who want to support the hard-hit domestic fishing industry of the Gulf Coast region, which is trying to move past the images of oil-soaked shrimp after the Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010.
"When somebody else slips something in and calls it a Gulf-branded seafood item, that really hurts the people down there that are trying to make a living and do it honestly," said Kimberly Warner, lead scientist on the Oceana study.
Warner and other advocates want the U.S. government to create programs that would track seafood from catch to sale. A bill called the Safety and Fraud Enforcement for Seafood Act, which would require records to be kept showing where and when seafood was caught, has been introduced in both chambers of Congress, but has not yet passed.
Generally, the Food and Drug Administration has the authority to crack down on fraudulent food sellers. "In the interest of public health, it is vital that both domestically processed and imported seafood are safe, wholesome and properly labeled," FDA spokeswoman Lauren Sucher told The Huffington Post.
However, the agency said it "does not provide speculative or advance information on enforcement actions" with regard to seafood sales.
Foreign shrimp farms, which are often not held to rigorous food standards, have their own problems that shrimp lovers may want to avoid. One grower in Vietnam was found to be using bacteria-laden ice to chill his shrimp, while some farms in Thailand have been linked to slave labor.
NEW YORK (AP) — After reporting disappointing quarterly sales Thursday, Starbucks said it will offer a delivery option on its mobile app in select areas of the U.S starting next year.
The Seattle-based company declined to provide more details, but has been pushing to get people to use its app as a way to build customer loyalty. It also previously said it plans to let customers across the country place orders ahead of time on their smartphone by next year, an option intended to get people in and out of stores quicker.
"We are playing offense," CEO Howard Schultz said in explaining the various steps the company is taking to adapt to changing customer habits, including their move toward online shopping and away from brick-and-mortar stores.
The delivery plans for the second half of 2015 were announced by Schultz during a conference call Thursday discussing the company's fiscal fourth quarter results. For the period ended Sept. 28, Starbucks reported sales that rose but fell short of Wall Street expectations. Global sales at established locations rose 5 percent, including in the Americas and Asia.
Starbucks Corp. is pushing aggressively into different areas as it faces more competition from fast-food chains serving specialty coffees. To boost sales of food in the afternoon, for instance, it has been revamping its sandwiches and adding new offerings like a grilled cheese sandwich that's warmed up in an oven.
This summer, Starbucks also launched its Fizzio soda drinks in the Sunbelt. But Wells Fargo analysts said in a note this week that their checks at a dozen stores in six states suggested the drinks aren't performing up to expectations so far.
In a phone interview, Chief Operating Officer Troy Alstead said the soda drinks are doing "exactly what we expected it to do," but that a national launch isn't planned for 2015. In a previous interview, Alstead had said he expected the drinks to be in much of the U.S. by the upcoming summer.
Alstead said Starbucks is instead focusing on growing its tea business. He said tea accounted for a "high single digit" percentage of sales last year, and that the company expects it to reach "well into the teens" over time.
For the quarter, Starbuckst earned $587.9 million, or 77 cents per share. Not including one-time item, it earned 74 cents per share, which was in line with Wall Street expectations, according to FactSet.
Revenue came in at $4.18 billion, short of the $4.24 billion analysts expected.
For the current quarter ending in December, Starbucks expects its per-share earnings to range from 79 cents to 81 cents. Analysts expected 83 cents per share. The company expects full-year earnings in the range of $3.08 to $3.13 per share.
Shares of Starbucks were down 4 percent at $74.04.
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Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi
When you sign a cell phone contract, you’re not just agreeing to pay thousands of dollars over a few years to AT&T or Verizon. You’re also signing away your right to sue the company or participate in a class action lawsuit against it.
If the cell phone provider systematically overcharges you or doesn't deliver, say, on its promise of "unlimited data," your only remedy -- unless the government steps in -- is forced arbitration, a private negotiation between the company and the customer where a non-judicial party decides your fate. Typically, the process is stacked in favor of the giant corporation.
Forced arbitration clauses have become widespread in recent years and there's one
buried in AT&T’s terms of service. It’s why the Federal Trade Commission, not customers, just sued AT&T for allegedly slowing down Internet speeds on customers' smartphones -- even though customers were complaining about the practice for years.
AT&T isn’t alone: the four other largest cell phone carriers – Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon – also have forced arbitration in their terms of service.
The policies are aimed primarily at restricting customers from class action lawsuits, but they also forbid customers from taking cell phone providers to just about any kind of court -- except small claims court, familiar to most Americans as the setting for The People’s Court; hardly the venue for exacting justice against multibillion dollar corporations.
Buried in these contracts from AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are clauses that take away your right to sue
T-Mobile is unique in having a forced arbitration opt-out policy, but it must be completed within 30 days of activation to be valid. So before you applaud the company for such a progressive policy, consider the likelihood that someone who just bought a new phone would also have the forethought to consider the best potential legal strategy against the company they bought the phone from. If a customer really envisioned becoming entangled in a legal dispute with a company over a purchase, they wouldn’t probably simply avoid doing business with that company.
Telecom companies are hardly outliers. Banks, retail stores and electronics giants have all found ways to get customers to sign away their right to take a company to court.
Even Cheerios tried to jump on the bandwagon. In April, the General Mills' cereal brand changed its terms of service so that simply liking the cereal on Facebook voided a consumer’s right to sue. But after a New York Times story drew attention to the policy, the company quickly reversed itself.
In 2011, the practice was upheld by the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote in AT&T vs. Concepcion. The court also upheld the legality of class arbitration waivers. That means that not only can terms of service waive your right to participate in a class action lawsuit, but also your ability to enter arbitration with other consumers. Individual arbitration is the only option.
The legality of these types of class action waivers was broadened even further by the Supreme Court in 2013 to include terms of service between businesses in the case of American Express vs. Italian Colors Restaurant. The court held that American Express could include class action waivers in its terms of service with merchants.
Some customers have tried to find justice against cell providers in small claims court, including one California man who sued and won $850 from AT&T in 2012. The stakes are low, but the companies’ monetary and legal advantage is narrowed. Here’s how Consumerist described the scene: “Since lawyers are not allowed in California small claims courts, AT&T was represented by its area sales manager.”
If you’re looking for a venue outside small claims court to shame companies into changing their policies, a petition may not be your best bet. Change.org has a forced arbitration clause in its terms of service.
