uJudge Dismisses Suit Accusing Uber Of Misrepresenting Services, Racketeeringr

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  (afagen)

  Uber scored a victory in one of the many legal battles it’s party to on Thursday, when a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by 15 Connecticut taxi and limousine companies that aimed to stop the ride-sharing service from operating in the state. 

  The companies, which filed the lawsuit back in May 2014, accused San Francisco-based Uber of misrepresenting its services, engaging in deceptive trade practices, and racketeering. These allegations echo claims made in other lawsuits which argue that Uber operates no differently than a taxi service but without having to comply with all the state and local regulations on such services.

  Uber filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that it was not operating unfairly or illegally in Connecticut.

  On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Thompson granted [PDF] Uber’s request, saying the taxi and limousine services failed to show that Uber competed unfairly, tried to lure away drivers or misrepresented its service, fares and insurance coverage.

  “The plaintiffs assert that Uber’s alleged misrepresentations concerning the legality of its services and that they otherwise have adequately pleaded other misrepresentations concerning ‘ridesharing,’ ‘driver partners,’ ‘operating legally,’ ‘insurance coverage,’ ‘safety,’ and ‘pricing’,” Thompson writes in his ruling. “However, the court concludes that the plaintiffs have not adequately pleaded that these alleged representations are false or misleading.”

  The taxi companies also argued in their suit that Uber’s billing system violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

  According to the dismissal, the plaintiffs based their accusations on wire fraud, asserting that Uber’s customers accessed the defendant’s fraudulent communications via its smartphone app.

  “The plaintiffs have merely alleged that in making an electronic hail, the defendant’s app ‘displays the available vehicles’ that the customer ‘chooses the type of car they want,’ and the app ‘displays the driver’s name and photograph on the user’s smart phone’,” the dismissal says. “These allegations do not support an inference that any misrepresentation claimed by the plaintiffs was communicated to customers via Uber’s smart phone app.”

  Despite dismissing the lawsuit, Thompson granted the taxi and limousine services’ request to amend the lawsuit. The groups have 30 days to do so.

  This isn’t the first time Uber has battled the Connecticut taxi and limousine industry. The Hartford Courant reports that the state legislature considered regulating the ride-sharing service.

  While Uber reportedly backed the bill, it hired lobbyists to represent its interest against traditional taxi services. The regulations were not approved before the end of the state’s legislative session in June.

  [via Hartford Courant]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uHere’s How Much Your Local Sports Bar Is Paying For NFL Sunday Ticketr

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  From a lawsuit filed against the NFL and DirecTV by a Manhattan bar. “3-Pay,” and “5-Pay” refer to options for paying for the package in installments.

  If you think $252-$354/year is a lot to pay for DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket, well… you’re right. But it’s also just a fraction of what even the smallest sports bar will pay to carry the exclusive add-on package.

  Last month, a San Francisco bar filed suit against the NFL and DirecTV, alleging that the exclusivity deal between the country’s most popular sports league and its largest pay-TV provider has resulted in a monopoly that can charge exorbitant prices because of consumers’ inability to get the service through other means.

  Now a New York bar has filed a similar complaint [PDF] in federal court, seeking class-action status to represent other commercial DirecTV customers who purchased Sunday Ticket.

  In making its case, the New York plaintiff points out that the NFL is the only one of the four major U.S. sports leagues who sells its out-of-market pay-TV package on an exclusive basis. Others, like NHL Center Ice, MLB Extra Innings, and NBA League Pass, are made available through multiple cable and satellite providers. Thus, the other three packages don’t cost consumers anywhere near as much money as Sunday Ticket.

  To drive home that point, the complaint includes the above chart showing the rates for Sunday Ticket compared to MLB Extra Innings.

  The least expensive commercial package, for bars with an occupancy of up to 50 people, costs nearly $1,500/year, nearly three times the cost of the MLB package. At larger occupancies, that ratio is even larger. For example, a bar that can fit up to 150 people will pay $4,630/year for Sunday Ticket, more than four times the cost of Extra Innings for the same size venue. And for mega-size venues with upwards of 5,000 guests, the annual cost for Sunday Ticket ($57,864) is more than 12 times the cost of the baseball package.

  The biggest fee, for venues with occupancies larger than 10,000, is $122,895/year for Sunday Ticket. Compare that to the maximum of $8,800/year for Extra Innings, which is about 1/14 the amount of the football package.

  There is the argument that Football, with its weekly ritual status, brings in significantly more patrons than baseball games that air every day, and therefore should cost more. But because bar owners have no other legal option for getting these NFL games, they are going to continue to make the claim that they would be paying at least slightly less if they weren’t locked into DirecTV.

  AT&T recently acquired DirecTV for $49 billion. Sunday Ticket was so crucial to the deal that AT&T would have been able to walk away from the deal if DirecTV had not been able to secure a new exclusive contract with the NFL.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uToilet Paper Clearance At Target Means You Pay 86¢ Morer

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• Justin was shopping at his local Target store when he spotted a big pack of toilet paper marked “Clearance.” Hey, great! It’s always really useful when you can find a markdown, even one of 15% like an initial Target clearance markdown, on an important household staple. Then he looked closer.

  

  Hmm. So that’s how it’s going to be.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uBritax Recalls 213,000 Car Seats Because They Might Not Secure The Childr

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  Britax recalled 213,000 car seats because they might not actually secure a child.

  Britax Child Safety Inc. initiated a recall this week of more than 213,000 car seats after finding buttons on the safety devices could fail, leaving a child essentially unsecured.

  The recall covers thousands of Britax ClickTight, Boulevard ChickTight and Marathon ClickTight car seats that have a red harness adjuster button that may stick in the release position.

  If the button fails, the shoulder harness can loosen from a child’s movements while secured in the seat. As a result, the harness may not adequately protect the child in the event of a crash.

  Britax says that an inventory of the seats found a small percentage of the harness adjuster buttons were manufactured out of tolerance. Under certain conditions, the button could remain in the open position after being used to adjust the harness.

  According to a notice [PDF] filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Britax became aware of the issue through a consumer’s Facebook post in late July. The company subsequently found four complaints on the NHTSA database related to loose harnesses and the ClickTight models.

  “Today while driving, my child was able to loosen his harness after I had installed it tightly,” one complainant writes. “After pulling over, I pulled it tight again and was able to pull it loose without pushing the button usually needed to loosen it. I was able to do this several times.”

  “I recently bought a Britax Advocate ClickTight, we used it once before we started to have issues with the harness getting tight enough to pass the pinch test,” another complaint states. I would pull on the harness, and it would “click” but it was not tight enough, if she wanted to, she should have climbed out of the seat.”

  Britax says that in all, it has received approximately 18 consumer complaints since production began in August 2014 related to loose harnesses on ClickTight convertibles. However, the company did not receive return products for inspection –to determine if food or other debris caused the condition– nor was Britax able to replicate the complaints with existing inventory.

  The company says that in order to fix the issue, it will provide all registered users a free remedy kit that includes a non-toxic food grade lubricant to apply directly to the harness adjuster button.

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uDon’t Expect Apple’s Live-TV Streaming Service Until 2016r

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  (Keirsten Marie)

  Sony and Dish have already shown, through their PlayStation Vue and Sling TV services, that it’s possible to sell a cable-TV-ish live-TV streaming service. Apple is expected to launch a service of its own in the coming months, but a new report says the company is having trouble licensing content and has had to delay its live-TV offering until 2016.

  This is according to Bloomberg, which reports that Apple has hit some speed bumps in its negotiations with CBS and Fox.

  While Dish’s Sling TV doesn’t currently offer any network TV programming, Sony’s PS Vue has deals in its markets to carry at least some local network feeds, in addition to some Fox Sports channels. Additionally, Sony is selling access to CBS-owned Showtime’s recently launched streaming service.

  According to Bloomberg, Apple wanted to offer its upcoming service starting at $40/month, which is $10 less than the cheapest Vue plan and about half the price of a comparable cable package. In order to make any money at that price point, Apple needs broadcasters to give them a really good deal on licensing fees. However, the trend for the last decade is for content providers to raise their prices, not offer discounts.

  Apple had reportedly been hoping to unveil the TV-streaming service at an early September press event, and Bloomberg says the company will still show off an improved version of its Apple TV device. But since it won’t be able to tout the content available for live-TV streaming, Apple has decided to push this service off until the next calendar year.

  There is also the issue of computing power. Bloomberg reports that Apple’s back-end isn’t yet ready to stream live TV to millions of users. Sony has been slowly rolling out its Vue service in select markets and still is not available in much of the country, but Apple reportedly wants to go nationwide from the start, which requires a more robust network and more data centers around the country to serve local demand.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uWatch An Amazon Fulfillment Center In Actionr

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• Amazon recently announced that it will open a new fulfillment center in Dallas, which will employ 1,000 more people. To give the public an idea of what these jobs will be like, the Dallas Morning News sent a reporter, a photographer, and a videographer over to an existing center in the area to watch humans and robots work together in perfect harmony to get a pack of socks to you in 2 days.

  The facility they visited, which is in Coppell, a Dallas suburb, has the same design as the planned new facility in South Dallas. You can see a giant robot arm (called a Robo-Stow) moving pallets around, and an army of Kiva robots that move shelves around the facility. Humans are still necessary to pack up orders, but the even the machine that slaps labels on the boxes is also weighing each package to ensure that the right combination of items is inside before it’s dispatched to your doorstep.

  Just want to watch the delicate dance of the Kiva robots? Here you go.

  Separating man and machine at Amazon’s Dallas fulfillment centers [Dallas Morning News]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uFCC Approves iRobot Automatic Lawnmowerr

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  (Misfit Photographer)

  iRobot, maker of robots that vacuum your carpets and scrub your toilets, wants to bring this same technology to your lawn. The lawn? Yes, humanity might hand over yet another of our annoying chores to our robot pals. While automatic lawn mowers are nothing new, iRobot’s version is. Maybe they can popularize the devices, which haven’t really caught on in this country.

  The products already on the market aren’t cheap: the list price of the wonderfully-named Robomow is $1,200, for example.

  The Federal Communications Commission was involved because the mower uses radio beacons to figure out the boundaries of your lawn, which the FCC had to ensure wouldn’t interfere with any other wireless equipment.

  The main entity that objected was the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which had concerns about the mower beacons interfering with its equipment. The FCC concluded that the beacons are tiny and small enough that they won’t interfere with the observatory’s giant radio telescopes.

  iRobot hasn’t announced yet when the mowers will hit the market or how much they might cost. However, if they use radio beacons at the corners of your lawn, they’ll be easier to set up, and iRobot can use its existing robot-marketing network to sell them.

  iRobot’s robotic lawn mower gets U.S. regulatory approval [Reuters]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist