Proposed Mass. law targeting retailers for breaches gets mixed response
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A Massachusetts state legislator is pushing a bill that would hold retailers financially liable to card-issuing banks for the costs of a security breach -- a proposal that quickly came under fire from retail groups.
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The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles hopes to drive business away from its branches and into the homes of its customers.
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Research suggests that retailers can use targeted ads to make even those who resist purchases more likely to buy.
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With a weak back-to-school season behind them, the nation's retailers are focused on the holidays and what steps they need to take to get consumers excited about shopping again. That could mean some quick merchandise changes and more aggressive discounting than they originally planned.
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The Massachusetts Association of Realtors was out in force yesterday to support a proposed state regulation that would make it easier for real estate agents from the same firm to represent the buyer and the seller of the same home, an arrangement critics claim can be a conflict of interest.
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A bill is on the governor's desk, and 4 of 5 state residents back it. But restaurant chains say mandatory measures are lawsuits waiting to happen.
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A federal court ruled that nationally chartered banks selling insurance in Massachusetts do not have to follow state laws that placed restrictions on insurance sales. Massachusetts passed legislation in 1998 prohibiting bank employees from bringing up insurance sales with customers, from receiving commissions for insurance sales, and from giving referrals to insurance agents. But eight banks and the Massachusetts Bankers ...
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Supermarkets could face multi-million pound fines.
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Pressure mounted on TJX Cos. yesterday after an Alabama bank filed a class action lawsuit against the Framingham discounter for negligence and breach of contract as Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate how the company lost control of potentially millions of customers' credit- and debit-card data.
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Proposed law suggests fines, jail sentences for guilty parties.
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CHICAGO -- The holiday season always turns the spotlight on retailers and the glare could prove too much for some merchants already under close scrutiny, analysts said.
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THE REGION The Massachusetts Senate is expected today to pass legislation aimed at preventing foreclosures and mortgage fraud. The bill encompasses several proposals made earlier by legislators and Governor Deval L. Patrick including: Making mortgage fraud a felony; establishing procedures to avoid deceptive mortgage loan advertising; adding requirements for lenders and borrowers, including in-person counseling; licensing mortgage originators; creating a ...
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Stop & Shop, a Massachusetts-based grocery chain, said that pin pads used in several of its stores in Rhode Island and Massachusetts were tampered with, endangering the payment card data of some of its customers.
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Two bills take different approaches toward the tricky concept of how to regulate what happens if a company has a data leak.
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Suggested changes to planning law means hundreds of new stores possible, say lobbyists
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Two lawmakers have introduced legislation that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or impairing Web content from competitors.Reps. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Chip Pickering, a Mississippi Republican, introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act Wednesday. The bill says it is U.S. policy to &quot;guard against unreasonable discriminatory favoritism for, or degredation of, content by network operators based upon its source, ownership, or destination on the Internet.&quot;The bill would also require the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to open a proceeding on broadband services and consumer rights. The FCC would be required to investigate whether broadband providers have adhered to its August 2005 policy that providers should refrain from blocking or interfering with Web content.&quot;The open architecture nature of the Internet ... has ensured the Internet&#39;s place as the greatest level playing field ever created,&quot; Markey said as he introduced the bill. &quot;The goal of this bipartisan legislation is to assure consumers, content providers, and high-tech innovators that the historic, open architecture nature of the Internet will be preserved and fostered. [The bill] is designed to assess and promote Internet freedom for consumers and content providers.&quot;A group of advocacy groups, as well as Google and Amazon.com, praised the bill, saying it is needed as recent news report have suggested Comcast is slowing its customer access to high-bandwidth applications such as BitTorrent. Comcast on Tuesday filed a document with the FCC defending&#160;its practice of engaging in &quot;network management.&quot;Petitions by advocacy group Free Press and online video distributor Vuze to have the FCC prohibit Comcast&#39;s traffic throttling &quot;raise important issues about the ability of broadband network operators to engage in reasonable network management to ensure that their customers can enjoy a positive broadband experience,&quot; Comcast said in its FCC filing. &quot;Network management is best left to the sound, good-faith judgment of the engineers and proprietors who run and own the networks and who are best able to remedy customer service issues promptly, rather than to regulation.&quot;The FCC has no prohibitions against Comcast&#39;s behavior, the company argued. &quot;Free Press mistakenly relies on the [2005 FCC] Internet Policy Statement as creating rules the commission can enforce,&quot; Comcast said.But representatives of the Open Internet Coalition, including Free Press and Public Knowledge, praised the new Markey legislation, saying it would remove doubt about U.S. policy on blocking or slowing Web content.In the last six months, Comcast and other broadband and mobile-phone providers have repeatedly tried to block content on their networks, said Markham Erickson, the Open Internet Coalition&#39;s executive director. Erickson called Comcast&#39;s Tuesday FCC filing &quot;remarkable.&quot;&quot;It appears to declare war on Internet users, policy makers, and even the FCC,&quot; he said. &quot;It essentially says that the FCC has no legal ability to protect consumers from discriminatory behavior.&quot;The Comcast filing called Free Press&#39; complaints about its network management &quot;inflammatory hyperbole.&quot; Asked about Erickson&#39;s comments on the filing, Comcast spokeswoman Sean Fitzmaurice denied that the company was saying the FCC had no authority to regulate net neutrality.The Markey bill is not as specific as past net neutrality bills that failed in a Republican-controlled Congress in 2006, but it would set a standard in federal law, said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. &quot;It&#39;s the right bill at the right time,&quot; she said.Without prohibitions against blocking or slowing Web content, broadband providers could sign deals with some content providers and shut out new Internet-based companies, added Richard Whitt, Google&#39;s Washington telecom and media counsel.&quot;Keeping the on-ramps to the Web free of undue discrimination is not about Google, it&#39;s about the next Google,&quot; Whitt said.Comcast declined to comment on the Markey bill. But Hands Off the Internet, an advocacy group with members including broadband providers AT&amp;T and Qwest, said it could support an FCC study of net neutrality.&quot;There&#39;s no question that a reasoned examination of the facts will demonstrate the folly of net neutrality,&quot; the group said in a statement, &quot;However, we are concerned that an effort to seek public input is intended to be a stalking horse for federal Internet regulation. The continued push by special interests to regulate Internet neutrality undercuts the best hope Net users have for faster, more affordable broadband.&quot;
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Retail chains from discounters like Kmart to department stores like Sears are under renewed scrutiny, not so much for what they sell as for the ground they stand on.