Consumer Watchdog Report Revealed How Google Bases Jet Fleet At Moffett Field Consumer Watchdog today welcomed an investigation by Sen. Charles Grassley, (R-Iowa) into Google’s use of NASA’s Moffett Federal Airfield in Santa Clara County, California, near Google headquarters. Grassley, ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote Charles F. Bolden Jr., NASA Administrator, expressing concern [...]

The rest of the country is happily watching gasoline prices sink as the latest bubble in oil crude prices springs a leak. Except California. Nationally, gasoline prices are down more than 15 cents a gallon over the last month, according to the daily AAA fuel gauge . California drivers are still cringing, with prices up more than 15 cents [...]

Next week we will be turning in the signatures for our ballot petition to force health insurance companies to justify their rates and get permission before instituting their rate hikes. Download, sign and return in the mail by the end of the weekend to be part of the signature turn-in or forever hold your peace. This short [...]

Two years ago, as federal health reform lay on death’s door, CEO Angela Braly, head of Blue Cross’s parent company Wellpoint, spit on beleaguered patients. She sat through poignant Congressional testimony from customers whose lives were being ruined by spiraling premium hikes, then Braly testified that the public outrage was “a triumph of sound bites over [...]

One million Californians will be slammed today with health insurance rate hikes as high as 20%. Consumer Watchdog Campaign has a solution. Watch this short, funny movie trailer about an alternative future with no rate hikes, and share it with your friends. Health insurance price hikes recur more often than Groundhog Day — Spring, Summer, Winter, [...]

Ballot Measure to Regulate Health Insurance Prices Will Let Voters Decide Whether To Regulate Health Insurance Prices A new analysis at followthemoney.org finds that health insurance companies gave $11.6 million in campaign cash to California politicians, including $7.4 million to candidates for the California legislature, between 2000 and 2010. The largest health insurance donor in California over [...]

Out of State Corporations Fighting to Keep Tax Loophole Are Top U.S. Tax Dodgers, Says Consumer Watchdog Companies With Major Sales in California Can Game Current System to Pay Lower Taxes Than Many In-State Businesses Three of the five global corporations behind a coalition aimed at protecting $1 billion a year in California tax loopholes are [...]

Ever wonder if your water is contaminated with toxic runoff from local industry? What about if your kids are safe playing in the dirt at home or at school? California regulators should be able to eliminate that fear. We’re at the confirmation hearing for the new director of the CA Dept. of Toxic Control to [...]

Over the weekend The Los Angeles Times published a new poll suggesting that we may have reached the tipping point on online privacy, finally forcing policymakers to take notice and react to ease people’s concerns. The USC Dornsife/ Times poll found a stunning 82 percent of Californians say they are very or somewhat concerned about “companies collecting [...]

This California license plate, “Gas Pain,” might be the sly joke of a gastroenterologist, but it’s not on a Mercedes. So let’s stipulate that it means pain at the pump, with a gallon of regular gas stuck for months at around $4.40. This kind of price is as usual fueled by investor speculation and an [...]

Consumer Watchdog has been highly critical of the gap between the Hyundai Elantra’s posted 29 city/40 highway MPG numbers and reality. We’ve asked the Environmental Protection Agency to re-test the Elantra, because even the most eco-aware drivers say they can’t reach those numbers, or the company’s 33MPG combined MPG. Hyundai has responded that only people who [...]

When I first noticed the ad below while hunting for cookie recipes, I was surprised to see a health insurance company buying a full page in the first pages of a cooking magazine. But reading it was another surprise. The headline touts “Free Annual Checkups,” and the text of the Anthem Blue Cross ad takes [...]

Probe of Wiretap Violations Should Include Google, Apple As Well As Software Maker By John M. Simpson WASHINGTON, DC – Consumer Watchdog called for a federal investigation into the “Spyphone Scandal”, in which software embedded in smartphones surreptitiously tracks users’ activities, including their keystrokes and numbers they dialed. The probe should extend beyond the software developer, [...]

By Douglas Heller Does your bank charge you extra on your monthly car or mortgage loan payments for insurance that the bank bought? Do you even know if it’s happening? Most people insure their homes and cars, but banks sometimes buy an additional policy without asking the owner, adding the costs to the monthly car [...]

In a remarkable act of either stupidity or brinksmanship, the Obama Administration challenged the US Supreme Court to either keep the federal individual mandate to buy health insurance or throw out with it some of the most important consumer protections in the federal health care overhaul. The Justice Department argues in a brief to SCOTUS that [...]

After spending some time at Occupy LA last week, and seeing the worldwide protests the occupation inspired this weekend, I have a firm sense that the cold of winter will not freeze the passion at the heart of the movement. This is no flash mob. It’s a movement about occupying space to stand against gross inequality, [...]

It is a masterful spin by the self-described not-for-profit Blue Shield of California to announce that it is returning all but two percent of its profits to its customers, as though this were some act of humble generosity. It’s a little like a supermarket announcing that from now on it’s going to give back (almost) all [...]

ExxonMobil, which is making big bets worldwide on hydraulic fracturing for deeply buried natural gas, is also making big bets on its sincere, earnest advertising about clean, safe natural gas. The ads turn me into a crazy person, yelling at the television during halftimes and seventh-inning stretches. Their claim that they ensure compliance with all “applicable [...]

Here’s a petition from our ally Public Citizen , calling on federal regulators to quit stalling and rein in the financial speculators who are jacking up gasoline prices. It’s well worth the few seconds to click on the link and sign the petition . Fight back against Goldman Sachs and the other big banks whose speculation costs you at [...]

We launched this new animated video today to welcome him. Called “Supercharge,” the third avatar animation in our “Don’t Be Evil” series exposes actual quotes by Schmidt and new Google CEO Larry Page, showing the two Google executives stalking a US Senator through the signal in his Android mobile phone. If a stranger followed us all [...]