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When Twitter was created, there was no built-in way to indicate that you were Tweeting to a particular account, so users came up with the “@username” method for tagging others in their Tweets . In the decade since, the @- reply has gone from obscure shorthand to commonplace usage by hundreds of millions of people. But as part of Twitter’s recently announced changes , the @-reply is vanishing — and some folks are not happy. Mashable reports that many of the users who have gotten their hands on the update have expressed confusion and frustration over the way their Tweets now appear with respect to conversations. When did Twitter for iOS stop showing usernames in replies? http://pic.twitter.com/AoDjZqtZya — Brady Valentino (@bradyv) October 30, 2016 To some users, this change isn’t just confusing, it also seems to be an indication that the networking site doesn’t care about their input. Sam Sharma, a producer for Playstation, Tweeted that users helped to invent the @(username) ...

The internet is covered in advertising.* It’s a fact of life. Some of that advertising, though, is a lot better — or at least, less completely sketchy — than other ads fighting for some time with your eyeballs. And since the sketchy stuff may make you think less well of the company running it, some media outlets are quietly disappearing the bars that always seem to end up full of “one weird trick” and bogus “celebrity death” stories. That comes from the New York Times, which reports today that many sites are quietly doing away with some of the most misleading, silliest advertising we’ve all gotten used to seeing online. You know the kind of ad the NYT is talking about. You’ve seen it all over the internet. This kind of ad usually says “promoted” or “around the web,” and hides itself by looking like any other “recommended” or “related” stories module. The latter direct you to content — usually on the same website or, in case of a network, perhaps on its sibling sites — that actually ...

Nissan is one of the top auto brands in the country, which is nice and all, but the owner of the country’s largest chain of auto dealers gave us a peek under the hood to explain why he doesn’t like the practices that help get it there. Namely, the company gives huge rebates and incentives to dealerships that make their sales goals. It’s these incentives that customers can use to their advantage by doing things like walking in at the end of the day or the end of the month, or trying to haggle aggressively. After all, if a five-figure bonus is on the line for the whole dealership, there should be room to negotiate on price, right? The chain AutoNation deals with a variety of automakers, and CEO Mike Jackson told Bloomberg that he’s tired of the incentive bonus game. “It’s a discriminatory, multi-tier pricing system that creates winners and losers among customers and retailers,” he told the news service. “The manufacturer is giving the perception that something’s available to everyone...

Every fall it seems like all anyone can ever talk about is “Oh I can’t believe someone is selling pumpkin spice potato chips ” or “Really, do we need pumpkin spice shoelaces?” So it may be refreshing to know that when it comes to pumpkins, we’re spending more money to carve them up than we are on buying into the latest pumpkin-flavored craze. First of all, let’s just note that “pumpkin spice” products don’t necessarily contain pumpkin flavors: instead, they’re often redolent of spices simply associated with the gourd, like cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg. That being said, Americans will spend about $650 million this year on pumpkins that they’re not planning on eating, MarketWatch reports, citing a prediction from personal finance site finder.com. The site arrived at that number by multiplying the average price of a pumpkin in September 2016 ($4.35) by the percentage of people who said they’ll carve a jack-o-lantern this year (46% of Americans), according to the Nati...

Two years after the National Labor Relations Board General Counsel  declared that McDonald’s could be held responsible for franchisees’ bad labor practices, the fast food giant has agreed, for the first time, to pay $3.75 million to settle a lawsuit that claimed the company was liable for labor law violations by a California franchisee.  McDonald’s will pay about 800 employees at five California restaurants $1.75 million in back pay and damages, as well a $2 million in legal fees to settle the allegations. The settlement [ PDF ], which must still be approved by a judge, puts an end to a two-year old lawsuit that alleged McDonald’s and the franchisee — Smith Family LP — were jointly liable for a slew of California labor law violations, including failing to pay overtime and providing meal time, failing to keep accurate pay records, and not reimbursing workers for time and money spent cleaning uniforms. In a separate and earlier agreement, the Smith Family franchisee agreed t...

If you’re a fan of Breaking Bad , you’re undoubtedly very familiar with the show’s Los Pollos Hermanos — heck, you might even go so far as buy a T-shirt with the fictional restaurant/meth factory’s logo on it. And that’s exactly why the artist who created the restaurant’s logo is suing Sony Pictures: he says the company made money off merchandise featuring the Los Pollos Hermanos logo without his permission. The man created the image in 2008 for the show’s fried chicken joint that served as a cover for Gustavo Fring’s drug operation, Courthouse News reports. But he claims in a federal lawsuit that his contract with Sony Pictures only gave the studio permission to use the image in the show, not to license it or peddle merchandise bearing the image. He’s also suing Topanga Productions, a distributor and subsidiary of Sony, claiming that the company has been licensing T-shirts, hats, and other merchandise featuring the Los Pollos Hermanos logo. So why is he suing now, two years af...

While you might pay any amount of money for relief in the middle of a migraine headache, patients and insurance companies alike have their ceilings. That’s why it’s a problem when drug companies take old components and combine them into a “new” drug that isn’t so new at all… if you had just bought those pills separately. The $83 migraine pill is a good example: marketed as Treximet, it combines two generic drugs, sumatriptan and naproxen. The Wall Street Journal interviewed a migraine sufferer about her drug-shopping experience, since she had been prescribed Treximet, and her health insurance company would no longer pay for it. Her choice: pay 750 for a prescription of nine pills or…there were two other choices that she didn’t know about. The manufacturer, Pernix Therapeutics Holdings Inc., has a patient assistance program where users can get the drug at a lower price; participants in these programs typically can’t be receiving their insurance from a government source (for example, ...

Three years after Butterball revolutionized its Turkey Talk help line by adding male operators for the first time , the company is once again revamping how it helps those cooking a turkey for the big holiday: not talking to them at all. Rather, they’ll be texting.  Business Insider reports that for the first time in its 35-year history Butterball will allow answer-seeking cooks to spell out their questions via text messages. With more than 100,000 questions coming in to the Turkey Talk line each year, the company decided it was best to open other modes of communication. “We’re just evolving based on consumers’ needs,” Sue Smith, Butterball’s talk line co-director, tells Business Insider. “It’s the natural progression for the talk line.” Cooks with questions ranging from how big of a bird they need, to how to thaw their turkey can text the Talk line at 1-800-Butterball 24/7 starting Nov. 17 and ending Nov. 24. It’s unclear how the 50 operators will split their time betwe...

While here in the U.S. you can get a personalized license plate, having “ILUVCHEEZ” on your bumpers won’t break the bank. Outside of the U.S., however, there are folks willing to drop millions to get just the right message on their luxury vehicles. Like the property developer in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, who wanted a license plate bearing only the number “5” so badly, he bid 33 million dirhams — $9 million or so — to get it at a government auction this month, CNNMoney reports ( warning: link contains video that auto plays ). That still isn’t as much as the $14 million an Abu Dhabi businessman spent on a plate in 2008, however. The new owner of the plate says some folks are accusing him of wasting money, because, well, $9 million is not a petty sum. “It’s hard, people giving comments without knowing the type of person I am,” he told CNNMoney, describing himself as “a simple man.” He says that because Dubai doesn’t have income tax, he sees the price he paid for the plate as a co...

It’s a novel idea: spend less on a smaller, often portable, home and and have extra money to travel, pay off student loans, or simply move from one place to another. But despite popular TV shows hyping this “tiny home” movement, the folks who build these diminutive dwellings downplay talk of a miniature housing boom. The Los Angeles Times reports that while shows like Tiny House Hunters  or Tiny House, Big Living depict a thriving tiny home market, with customers forgoing large homes with several thousand square feet and opting for small, usually one-room abodes. Yet the companies that make these small homes say they aren’t exactly flying off the shelves. “There are so many ­roadblocks out there to selling them,” Lee Saenz of Adventure Cabins explains to the Times. “If they want to buy it, they don’t have the land. If they have the land, it’s not zoned for a tiny home. Or they don’t have enough cash.” Saenz started his company in 2011, and specializes ...

It’s understandable that someone would harbor a lifelong love of the opera, an affection that could lead one to wish they could stay at the theater forever . But New York police say one opera fan’s expression of devotion went a step too far when he scattered what seems to have been his mentor’s ashes during a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. The impromptu farewell cut off a performance of “Guillaume Tell” on Saturday at Lincoln Center, the New York Daily News reports. Investigators say it appears that an opera buff dumped his deceased friend’s ashes into the orchestra pit. “Members of the orchestra … noticed an individual in a suit who approached the orchestra pit, reached into a bag, removed a powdery substance, sprinkled that into the orchestra pit, moved further down, reached into the bag again, sprinkled more of this substance into the orchestra pit,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller tsaid. The city’s health department will test ...

Operating a store selling a product that’s legal in your state but illegal on the federal level creates a unique business challenge: running a business without being allowed to use banks. Yet ballot initiatives on Election Day, just over a week from today, could make recreational or medical cannabis legal for recreational or medical use in 34 states, and for both in populous states like California and Massachusetts. Could this push the feds to do something about the banking situation? The situation right now is an inconvenient one : cannabis businesses have a special tax deposit area with elaborate security procedures in Oregon , and some businesses in Colorado literally launder their money — giving it a soak in fabric softener to get rid of the telltale smell before depositing it in a bank. Some retail businesses set up bank accounts in the names of holding companies, but the cash-only rule applies to customers, too: they can’t use credit cards . Everyone knows that dispensaries ar...

Southwest Airlines is the only one of the largest U.S. commercial airlines that does not charge for customers to check bags, meaning the company is missing out on this multibillion-dollar revenue stream. While Southwest CEO Gary Kelly acknowledges the need to bring in more money for his business, he says his company has no plans to lose its “bags fly free” identity. “We have a unique and beloved position in the industry with this approach,” Kelly explained about the lack of a mandatory checked-bag fee during a recent quarterly earnings call, “and we would be foolish to squander it, so no thought whatsoever on charging bags.” Some Southwest investors are pressuring the company to ditch its longstanding no-fee position, especially as its most recent quarterly net income came up nearly $200 million short of the same quarter last year. Kelly blamed some of this most recent financial trouble on the massive network-wide outage that grounded much of the airline in July . He also explained...

Luxury labels are having a rough go of it lately, what with fewer tourists flocking to department stores and slowing traffic at standalone stores . So if you’re looking for a wide variety of handbag options this holiday season, you might be limited in your choices: the luxury retailers that usually peddle high-end handbags are trimming their lineups. Millennial shoppers aren’t as into the whole luxury thing, Bloomberg reports, and department stores have continued to see traffic slow down. So in order to survive the holiday season, retailers are introducing fewer new lines, instead of throwing a whole bunch of choices at shoppers, one analyst for the fashion industry said. “Reducing the number of products, making sure they are choosing their products really smartly, can help make sure they’re getting full-price sales rather than discount,” she told Bloomberg. To that end, the number of new purses introduced by Nordstrom and Bloomingdales dipped 23% and 3% respectively, which is in ...

One of the most instantly recognizable sounds in electronics may be about to go the way of “You’ve Got Mail,” as Apple is reportedly doing away with it signature startup sound on its Mac computers. Business Insider , citing blog Pingie.com , reports that the single note chime did not migrate to Apple’s newest MacBook Pro announced last week. The chime-less startup is likely the result of the way the new MacBooks turn on: with no power button, the computer simply starts anytime the cover is lifted. Additionally, a FAQ page for the older Macs indicated that the “startup sound” was a way to reset a computer’s non-volatile random-access memory. A mention of the chime sound is not included in the new MacBook FAQ page. Pingie.com writer Dan, who owns one of the new laptops, points out that the writing was on the wall for the chime’s discontinuation, as Apple’s newest products, including the iPhone, don’t have startup sounds. Still, Business Insider notes that the chime had been a part ...

Boo! If you think mergers and acquisitions are scary, than two huge companies have a special Halloween morning treat for you: CenturyLink and Level 3 announced this morning that the former is acquiring the latter for $34 billion. The merger is huge in internet-land, but not for the service you can sign up for at home. That’s the territory of “last mile” providers. And while CenturyLink does provide home and business service, in the same way as Charter, Comcast, and Verizon FiOS do, the deal is largely not about that. The real impact is farther up the chain. Both CenturyLink and Level 3 are big “tier 1” networks, basically a vital part of the internet backbone in the U.S., connecting networks to other networks quickly and reliably. This merger, then, further consolidates CenturyLink’s status as one of the biggest, most important internet-supporting companies in the country, keeping it competitive with AT&T and Verizon, among others. In short, it’s all about the fiber: CenturyLin...

On TV and in the movies, when the police want location information on a suspect’s cellphone, the world-weary detectives just mosey into the office of a wireless company and bully/sweet-talk the receptionist into handing over this information by saying things like “You don’t want us to have to wait here while we get a warrant, do you?” In the real world, it’s not that simple, and the question of whether or not an actual warrant is needed has yet to be resolved. The U.S. Supreme Court has recently been asked to hear a pair of similar but currently separate cases that involve suspects accused of robbery (why can’t these appeals ever involve more pleasant people?), but which also get to questions about the extent our constitutional privacy protections in the smartphone era. Graham v. U.S. The first of the two cases, Graham v. U.S., began with the police investigation into a string of armed robberies in and around Baltimore in early 2011. Aaron Graham and another man were arrested after ...

The likely 50-day incubation period is over, and there have been no new cases of hepatitis A linked to contaminated scallops served at sushi restaurants in Hawaii since Oct. 9. The state reports that two people who were infected with the linked strain of hepatitis have died, though only one patient’s death was due to the infection. One of the women who died while infected was already terminally ill and had entered hospice care, so her death wasn’t officially attributed to the infection. The other was a woman in her sixties who died last week due to complications of liver failure. She had the same strain of hepatitis that was linked to the scallops, and had eaten at the restaurant blamed for the outbreak, Genki Sushi, back in July. Hawaii News Now reports that she was waiting for a liver transplant at the time she died . (warning: auto-play video at that link) “Unfortunately we’re now dealing a woman who died from eating food,” said Bill Marler, the lawyer and food safety website pub...

An American Airlines flight preparing to takeoff from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport blew a tire and caught fire Friday afternoon following a reported engine malfunction.  The Chicago Sun Times reports that all 170 passengers and crew members on their way to Miami were able to exit the plane via emergency slide. A spokesperson for the airline said that no injuries had been reported and that passengers were bussed to the terminal. The incident occurred at around 2:35 p.m. ET as the plane was preparing to depart. The airline said in a statement that takeoff was aborted because of an engine-related mechanical problem. However, a tire also blew and a fire ignited. @NZAircraftFan AA383 aborted take-off due to a mechanical issue. Passengers/crew deplaned on the runway and are being bused to the terminal. — American Airlines (@AmericanAir) October 28, 2016 Chicago Fire Department officials responded to the scene, distinguishing the fire by 3 p.m., the Sun Times report...

Following in the footsteps of rival carmakers BMW and General Motors , Toyota dipped its tires into the sharing game on Friday, announcing an investment in car-sharing company Getaround.  Reuters reports that Toyota made an unspecified investment in the San Francisco-based startup through its Mirai Creation Investment Limited Partnership, which focuses on increasing the carmakers’ presence in artificial intelligence and robotics. The investment, rumored to be around $10 million, marks the carmaker’s second when it comes to ride or vehicle sharing. The company already has a partnership with Uber that involves leasing vehicles to drivers. Getaround launched in 2013 and has been offering on-demand car-sharing services in San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other cities ever since. Friday’s investment comes after BMW launched its own service called ReachNow in Seattle in June. Before that, in January, General Motors introduced its own so-called personal mobility ...

Last year, American Airlines issued an apology to a retired U.S. Marine  after the veteran said he and his service dog were denied boarding a flight. While the airline put that incident behind it, it’s now facing a similar complaint from an Army vet who has accused the airline of mocking her and refusing to let her travel with her licensed service dog. The Mississippi woman says in a recently filed lawsuit against American Airlines that she was “emotionally crushed and humiliated” when airline employees mocked her and refused to allow her to fly from Kansas to Mississippi with her service dog, Jake. According to the lawsuit [ PDF ], the woman — who developed post-traumatic stress disorder from her time in the Army — followed all of the carriers’ directions when it came to traveling with her service dog. The carrier’s website stated that “service animals are welcome on all flights. There are no additional charges for service animals traveling in the cabin.” The plaintiff says th...

A former Chipotle manager worked hard and rose through the company’s ranks, and then he says that he had a decision to make after opening of a new restaurant: he could commit wage theft against his employees, or he could risk losing his job and the relocation bonus he had just received. He chose the latter, and is now speaking out about his experience with wage theft at the burrito eatery. He spoke to CNN about his experiences (warning: auto-play video at that link) , detailing his six years with the company, starting as a teenage burrito-maker and ending his career with the company clashing with his own bosses as a store manager. He first served as a manager at a very profitable restaurant in St. Louis, and says that bosses didn’t especially care about his anti-wage theft stance there. He says that he was expected to erase the overtime hours of any employees who worked more than 40 hours per week, and no one particularly cared about his argument that doing so was unethical as well...

We live in a world that’s constantly throwing new technology, new business, and new quandaries at us. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Uber, Twitter, and the smartphone that we use to access them all on either didn’t exist, or existed very differently, as recently as a decade ago. The framework for our legal system, however, was built in the 18th and early 19th centuries. And that means sometimes trying to apply to the latter to the former can result in entertaining, if accurate, dissonance. And in fact, a case against Facebook is exactly how we get to a federal judge in San Francisco this week explaining that George Washington basically did not give two whits about the details of biometric data storage, Courthouse News reports . The discussion came up during a hearing about a privacy-related class-action suit Facebook is trying to have dismissed. The core issue behind the case has to do with facial recognition. You know how when you upload a photo, Facebook automatically suggests people yo...

The Chicago Cubs are looking for their first World Series win since 1908, so the folks at Wrigley Gum are celebrating the Series return to Wrigley Field by selling chewing gum at 1908 prices. What this cash-in promotion glosses over is the fact that the Wrigley name had nothing to do with the Cubs 108 years ago. Starting today, Mars says that a small pack of Wrigley gum will cost $0.05 for the duration of the World Series. “The last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series it was 1908, when Teddy Roosevelt was in office, radio and TV hadn’t yet been invented and the price of a pack of Wrigley gum was 5-cents,” the company said. To get the discounted price, customers must download a coupon for $0.30 off a $0.35-cent five-stick pack of any Wrigley’s gum, including Doublemint, Juicy Fruit, Spearmint, Winterfresh, or Big Red. While Mars and Wrigley gum are no doubt enjoying the Cubs’ return to the World Series, it should be noted that any connection between the gum and th...

Between the World Series, the election, the start of the NBA season, finishing up your Halloween costume, that one friend’s improv show that you somehow got wrangled into attending, the impending Daylight Savings shift, and that spot on your knee that you’re sure wasn’t there a week ago — you’ve got a lot going on. But have all those distractions kept you from retaining the things you read in the last few days? Last week we went easy on y’all and it showed in the results, where the median score was a record-high 75%. Was that a fluke, or do you have it in you to repeat your C-grade performance for a second week? Take the Consumerist Quiz and find out! Take Our Survey by Chris Morran via Consumerist

As wonderful as it might sound, odds are that no one is trying to call you to give you free money, and anyone who dangles a get-rich-quick scheme in front of you should be quickly ignored. Yet federal regulators say  telemarketers tricked seniors and veterans out of their money with these sorts of scams. The Federal Trade Commission Friday announced that it had charged three individuals and five companies with operating a telemarketing scheme that sold worthless money-making opportunities and phony grants to seniors, veterans, and consumers already strapped with debt. According to the FTC complaint [ PDF ], the companies — identified as Blue Saguaro Marketing, MarketingWays.com, Max Results Marketing LLC, Oro Canyon Marketing II, and Paramount Business Services LLC — misled potential victims by promising that they could make easy money. The scheme generally took on two different variations: the telemarketers would claim to be with Amazon or the federal government. In the...

The question of whether drivers for Uber and other app-based ride-hailing services is an international one, since the service relies on the same independent contractors model around the world. In the United Kingdom, an employment tribunal ruled that drivers for Uber, specifically, should have “employee” status, which includes minimum wage and paid time off. The case concerned two individual Uber drivers , but the general union GMB actually brought the case to the tribunal. “This is a monumental victory that will have a hugely positive impact on drivers… and for thousands more in other industries where bogus self-employment is rife,” the union’s legal director said in a statement. Uber plans to appeal the decision, which could affect its competitors, as well as food delivery services that use an independent contractor model for labor. That would be an expensive proposition for the companies, especially since lawyers are currently caclulating how much back pay the drivers might be due...

Advertisers have always targeted their marketing to the demographic most likely to be interested in their product, but is there a difference between running an ad that you know will probably mostly be seen by people who fall into just one ethnic group and an ad that actively excludes people outside of that group? That’s the question underlying a new story from ProPublica , which looks at the ability for Facebook advertisers to target users based on their “Ethnic Affinity.” The social network’s settings for ad buyers can be quite granular, allowing you to specify things like education, income and net worth, and the aforementioned ethnic affinity. It also lets you set exclusion rules for your ad based on many of these same categories. So, for example, you can target users with college degrees and net worths of between $200,000 to $500,000 while excluding users with net worths higher than $750,000 whose ethnic affinity is Asian-American. Where this gets particularly problematic i...

It’s a process most of us are familiar with, by now: you buy something online, and you get two emails from the site you bought it from. The first is an order confirmation, with an invoice, order number, or order summary in it. The second, a few hours or days later, is a shipping notification: a heads’ up that the package is coming your way, with info about what carrier is bringing it and when you can expect your goods to land at your doorstep. Sending you a shipping notice may seem like a basic, common-sense thing that basically any business with an interest in customer service could independently come to the idea of making a part of its process. But one company claims to have patented it, and is suing anyone who resists demands to pay up for infringement. As the Wall Street Journal reports, Shipping & Transit LLC has sued more than 100 small companies this year for infringing on patents it claims to own: namely, the idea that you can notify customers when their stuff has shippe...

You can’t go anywhere — or at least get far — if the engine in your car stalls. For that reason, BMW recalled more than 135,000 vehicles that could contain a wiring issue.  The recall, announced this week, involves 136,188 5-Series, X5, 6-Series, and X6 vehicles from model years 2007 through 2012. According to a notice [ PDF ] posted with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, wiring to fuel pumps inside the gas tank may not have been properly crimped. If this is the case, the wires could come loose and melt a connector, causing a gas leak. That can stop the fuel pump from working and make engines stall. Over time, this condition could cause the fuel pump to become inoperative. BMW says it became aware of the issue back in 2011 through customer complaints involving fuel odor. The carmaker performed an analysis and concluded that the issue would also be detected by the evaporative fuel tank leak diagnostic system. Three years later, in Sept. 2014, as a result ...

Earlier this month, meal replacement startup Soylent announced that it would voluntarily stop selling its new-to-market Soylent nutrition bar after receiving reports from customers who became ill after consuming the snack . Now, the company says it will expand that action to include certain meal-replacement powder after receiving similar issues.  Soylent announced on Thursday that it would stop the sale of Powder 1.6 — which is designed to be mixed with water and consumed instead of solid food — and advised customers who have shown sensitivity to the product to discard whatever is left. The move was made after an “aggressive” investigation to uncover why people were having negative experiences after eating Soylent Food Bars. The investigation included “product testing, an exhaustive industry search, and discussions with many of our suppliers,” the company said in a blog post. “Our tests all came back negative for food pathogens, toxins or outside contamination.” At that po...

It looks like taxpayers didn’t just overpay for EpiPens purchased through Medicaid. According to a new report, the Department of Defense has been paying almost full retail price for the expensive emergency allergy treatment. This is according to a Reuters analysis of available data , which found that many of the EpiPens paid for by the DoD were purchased at retail pharmacies instead of military facilities or by mail order. That means the DoD’s deep discount on the drug did not apply. When EpiPens were purchased at retail stores, Reuters says the DoD paid an average price that was up to three times higher than the discounted rate for buying the drug at a military facility. That wouldn’t be that much of a problem if it were only a small number of patients buying EpiPens at the higher price, but Reuters reports that nearly half of these drugs were bought at retail. Between the drug’s soaring price hikes and the increased demand for EpiPen, DoD annual spending on the allergy treatment j...