Technology

The government is initiating its first legal action to stop unauthorized and unwanted cellphone charges.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Wednesday charged that Wise Media LLC, a Georgia-based company, signed up and billed consumers for text messages containing horoscopes, love tips and flirting advice that they had never requested, in a scam known as "cramming."

The company then forced customers to opt out of its subscription services, though it hid its contact information and in many cases charged customers even if they tried to unsubscribe, according to the complaint.

Because the company used confusing or abbreviated labels for its charges, many customers paid the $9.99 monthly fee regardless of their disapproval of the service, the FTC claims.

A leading consumer advocacy group is throwing its support behind a proposal to make it legal for people to unlock their cellphones and shop around for another wireless service provider, once their contract is complete.

Consumers Union, the policy arm of the publication Consumer Reports, lauded last month’s announcements from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the White House in support of the change.

The growing support for the rule-change, “presents an important opportunity to empower consumers with greater choice in how they obtain mobile devices and wireless service,” the group wrote in letters to the FCC, and leaders in both chambers of Congress.

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should ensure that Sprint and T-Mobile are able to buy the rights to wireless frequencies, the Justice Department argued in a filing made public on Friday.

The department's Antitrust Division argued that ensuring smaller carriers have access to spectrum — the airwaves that carry all mobile data traffic — is critical for promoting competition and keeping cellphone service prices down.

Sprint and T-Mobile operate nationwide networks but are much smaller than industry leaders Verizon and AT&T.

Citing safety concerns, former Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) chairman Gregory Jaczko says the nation’s 104 nuclear power reactors should be replaced with newer technology, The New York Times reports.

Jaczco’s remarks come as the current NRC members face scrutiny over the implementation of a series of safety recommendations put forth in the wake of the Fukushima meltdown in Japan.

The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) has a new chief, following the Senate’s unanimous vote to confirm her as the financial regulator’s chairman, The Hill’s On The Money blog reports. 

President Obama's top climate adviser said controversial new power plant emission rules will be issued in the "not too distant future," according to The Hill's E2 Wire blog.

Tree fruit farmers have joined the debate over the Food and Drug Administration’s proposed food safety overhaul, The Washington Post reports.

They are not the only group to find fault with the proposed regulations, which will exempt several fruits and veggies -- along with almost eight in 10 U.S. farms, as reported by RegWatch earlier this year. 

The Obama administration is moving to ease the national transition from paper to electronic health records through a pair of proposed rules to be published this week.

The rules, to hit Tuesday’s Federal Register, would update and extend existing regulations surrounding the sharing of patient electronic records.

Federal law generally prohibits hospitals from giving medical record software to doctors who would then use it to refer patients back to the facility for treatment. Violations can be charged as felonies and are punishable by prison time and fined up to $25,000.

The commission issued a request for public comment on a proposal that would focus on penalizing only "egregious" cases.

Retail stores turned away nearly 90 percent of all young shoppers who tried to buy video games with mature content last year, according to a federal regulator.

The secret shopping investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that only 13 percent of underage customers were able to buy mature, or M-rated, video games.

That’s a welcome finding for the video game industry, which has been battling against calls for increased regulation of their products since last year’s mass shooting in Connecticut sparked a wide-ranging debate about violence in America.

Sen. Chuck Grassley and other lawmakers worry that unmanned aircraft will be used to peer into people's private lives.

Scammers in Jamaica are cheating seniors out of hundreds of millions of dollars each year, a federal regulator said Wednesday.

Vance Callender of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agency told a Senate committee that fraudulent sweepstakes prizes are being used to swindle thousands of elderly Americans into paying “customs fees,” for money and luxury cars, but the prizes never arrive.

“Perpetrators will victimize consumers of all ages, backgrounds and income levels, but the elderly are disproportionately targeted. Perpetrators take advantage of the fact that elderly Americans may have cash reserves or other assets to spend on these deceptive offers,” Callender said.

The Federal Trade Commission issued new guidelines making clear that advertisements on Twitter must include the same disclosures as any other kinds of ads – even if that means taking up a significant chunk of the allotted 140 characters, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Google will pay $7 million in fines for illegally collecting personal data via its Street View application, according to MarketWatch.

French regulators are investigating Luxembourg-based Skype Communications over its failure to register as a telecommunication operator, sparking new debate over what constitutes a phone company in the digital era, The New York Times reports.