The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls has issued a notice announcing that beginning November 17, 2009, it is offering a precursor to its upcoming MARY Status Retrieval System, known as MARY "lite", which will provide users access to their D-Trade2 export license status without having to log on to the D-Trade 2 interface.
Leading online brands for flower sales, movie and airline tickets and printing services are the target of a shaming campaign from the Senate Commerce Committee, for their business dealings with “mystery charge” providers. The committee released the tentative results of a six-month investigation into Vertrue, Affinion and Webloyalty (WID May 29 p2), whose free-trial subscription offers have been shown during the checkout process for hundreds of Web retailers and have drawn mostly negative reactions from customers who learn they signed up for a separate program. A handful of those consumers testified at a committee hearing Tuesday.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted its report to Congress on the Automated Commercial Environment for the third quarter of fiscal year 2009 (April 1 through June 30, 2009).
A company that promised to finance computer purchases for poor consumers has flouted an earlier settlement and court order, the Federal Trade Commission told the U.S. District Court in New York in a filing for contempt charges. BlueHippo told consumers they could buy computers by providing the company a down payment and 13 weekly payments, but most didn’t receive the computers, including those who met its user-unfriendly “undisclosed conditions,” the FTC alleged in the original lawsuit. It got a $3.5 million settlement with the company in April 2008, requiring BlueHippo to stop allegedly deceiving customers, but the company “aggressively” marketed itself the rest of the year, signing up more than 35,000 customers but providing “at most a single financed computer,” the commission said. “Complaints about the company poured into the Better Business Bureau” and BlueHippo didn’t turn in a required compliance document, requiring the FTC to notify the court. After BlueHippo started ordering thousands of computers in April 2009, it failed to order computers for about two in five qualifying customers, and took six months on average to deliver computers to the rest, far more than the advertised three to four week time frame, the commission alleged. The contempt filing also said BlueHippo didn’t disclose important parts of its refund policy, including limitations on how customers who cancelled their order could use store credits for similar items. The commission’s online announcement was paired with a short video featuring Chairman Jon Leibowitz casually explaining the case. Announcements often include links to legal documents but not other forms of media. A spokeswoman told us the commission shoots and posts such videos “from time to time, but we've done a handful.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message reminding the trade about changes to the Importer Security Filing transaction sets that are scheduled to become effective Saturday, November 14, 2009.
The U.S. is out of line with nearly every “high-income” democracy when it comes to privacy regulation and the resources dedicated to protecting privacy, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a report Tuesday recommending the creation of several privacy offices and organizations in the federal government. Not only has the private sector been “extremely aggressive” in collecting data about consumers, but that information in turn is shared in a “dizzying breadth of areas” with federal agencies, the report said. The ACLU recommended a bifurcated approach, with a strengthened Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board -- originally a White House body with no subpoena power that suffered from alleged political tampering (WID July 25/07 p4) -- and a revamped FTC to act as a “privacy watchdog” over businesses.
Previous U.S. trade agreements are the best guide for understanding what’s likely to come out of the Anti- Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) discussions among countries that account for half of world trade, a U.S. Trade Representative official said last week. “Far from speculating” about what could be in the new agreement, as many public-interest groups have done, “I can tell you” what the U.S. is pushing to be included, Stanford McCoy, assistant USTR for intellectual property and innovation, told an American University law school audience.
During the November 4, 2009 Departmental Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Related Homeland Security Functions (COAC) meeting, CBP officials provided an update on 102.
The ITDS Board has submitted its annual report on the International Trade Data System to Congress, as required by the 2006 SAFE Port Act.1 The report includes updates on the status of ITDS implementation and the status of the Automated Commercial Environment within U.S. Customs and Border Protection, among other issues.
The ITDS Board has submitted its annual report on the International Trade Data System to Congress, as required by the 2006 SAFE Port Act.1 The report includes updates on the status of ITDS implementation and the status of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) within U.S. Customs and Border Protection, among other issues.