Attention JC Penney Shoppers, Look Out for the Return of ‘Sales Galore’
After months of abysmal sales tallies, the Ron Johnson era is over at JC Penney. Now that Johnson’s “fair and square” no-coupons pricing policies have proved to be a failure, the department store will have to try something else to win back customers and stop the bleeding. But what? Mike Ullman, who was replaced as CEO when Johnson took over at JC Penney in 2011, and who began serving again as top executive when Johnson was pushed out, told the Wall Street Journal that he wasn’t planning on reverting to the old business model. “I wouldn’t recommend that we go back to the way J.C. Penney was when I left,” he said. “Things change.” And yet, in some ways the department store is clearly trying to resemble the JC Penney of old. Management has already announced that newspaper ads will feature coupons once again. Johnson seemed to find coupon usage distasteful and silly, likening it to a drug that consumers needed to be weaned off. A little over a year after JC Penney went “drug-free,” ...
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Google CEO Meets with Feds as U.S. Senator Blasts FTC Over Antitrust Probe
With the clock ticking down until a crucial Federal Trade Commission vote over whether to sue Google for antitrust violations, the search giant’s CEO Larry Page met with federal officials in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. The meeting, which was first reported by Bloomberg, came one day after a powerful U.S. Senator sent a letter to the FTC expressing concern about the way the agency has been conducting its investigation. The FTC is wrapping up a nearly two-year investigation into whether Google has used its search market power to unfairly harm rival companies. Google and the FTC have been conducting negotiations for several weeks to see if a settlement is possible. If no deal is reached, the FTC will proceed in the coming days with a vote that will determine whether the commission files a lawsuit. If the FTC votes to sue Google, it would be the most dramatic antitrust action taken by the U.S. government against a major technology company since the Department of Justice sued Microsoft in ...
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Schools Suing Graduates for Defaulting on Loans
As more college graduates default on their student loans, some schools are taking drastic measures to ensure repayment. According to a recent Bloomberg report, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania and George Washington University have taken defaulters to court in recent years to try to force them to pay up. The schools are targeting recipients of Perkins loans, which are subsidized loans usually awarded to lower-income students with exceptional financial need. Unlike the larger federal Stafford loan program, in which the Department of Education acts as the lender, Perkins loans are administered directly by participating institutions with a mixture of funds from the federal government and the schools themselves. Almost 500,000 of the loan awards are doled out annually. According to court records analyzed by Bloomberg, the University of Pennsylvania filed at least 12 lawsuits to recoup Perkins loan money last year. Yale is suing a former student for about $6,500 in outstanding loans, while ...
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Free Federal Wireless Broadband For All Americans? Fuggedaboutit!
The United States government is not going to be providing free WiFi Internet access to consumers anytime soon. That news may surprise anyone who read a startling Washington Post story on Sunday that seemed to confuse a fairly esoteric telecom policy proposal about the use of so-called “white space” wireless spectrum with some sort of free national wireless Internet access plan. The “free WiFi for all” story, which was passed around uncritically by Internet blogs and news sites, set off a furor because the notion cuts to the heart of ongoing battles over access to the Internet, the “digital divide,” and federal policy decisions that could have major implications for the telecom, cable, and technology industries. But the story was wrong, as Ars Technica pointed out. On Tuesday, outlets that repeated the bunk story began walking their reports back, in some cases apologizing for giving bad information to the public. The episode, which provoked a strong pushback from tech ...
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Sue or Settle? Feds Face Crunch Time Over Google Antitrust Decision
The Federal Trade Commission is nearing a critical decision on the next step of its nearly two-year investigation into whether Internet search titan Google has used its market power to harm rivals. The FTC could file a lawsuit against Google, or the commission could reach a settlement with the tech giant. The decision about whether to sue or settle will likely help define FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz’s legacy at an agency where he has served for more than eight years, including the last three as chairman. Leibowitz is expected to soon leave the FTC and enter the private sector. Last month, Reuters reported that four of the five FTC commissioners had concluded that Google has used its search market dominance to harm its rivals. Agency investigators circulated a draft memo recommending legal action against Google. Last week, Bloomberg reported that the FTC has delivered “an ultimatum” to Google demanding that the search giant offer a plan to settle the investigation, or face a lawsuit. If ...
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