Consumerist
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polls
Worst Company In America 2008: Preliminaries: Frontrunners
Early leaders in Worst Company in America 2008 preliminary voting round: Comcast 21%, Best Buy 8%, Bank of America 5%, Fox News 5%, Walmart 5%, Countrywide 4%, Verizon 3%, AT&T 3%. Somewhere in our heart is a flicker of hope that dark horse Video Professor will pull into the running (currently with 0% of the vote). Voting for who gets to be seeded in the tournament brackets is still open, cast yours today. -
polls
Worst Company In America 2008: Preliminaries (2nd Try)
The poll machine is fixed and it's time to vote on which companies will get to compete in Consumerist's Third Annual Worst Company In America contest. This year, you nominated 121 different companies, a new record. The poll is inside (it may take a few seconds to load). You get one vote. The companies receiving the most votes will get seeded in a tournament-style bracket. Then the clash of the customer service midgets begins! Remember that as this contest goes on you can visit consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america to keep track of all the proceedings. More » -
polls
Worst Company In America 2008: Preliminaries
It's time to vote on which companies will get to compete in Consumerist's Third Annual Worst Company In America contest. This year, you nominated 121 different companies, a new record. The poll is inside. You get one vote. The companies receiving the most votes will get seeded in our March Madness-style brackets. Then the clash of the customer service midgets commences! Note: because there's 121 companies, the poll may take some time to load.
UPDATE: There were so many bad companies that it broke our poll system. We'll have to take down the post and find a new poll system and try again. Any recommendations for non-crappy poll systems that can handle over several thousands responses?
UPDATE: We are working on a new poll solution and hope to try this again tomorrow.
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worst company in america
Worst Company In America '08: Nominate
It's time for Consumerist's 3rd Annual Worst Company in America Contest! Last year, RIAA won. Before that, Halliburton took the prize. Who will climb to the top of the nadir this year?
Here's how it works. Name your favorite company to hate in the comments on this post and why (or send it to tips@consumerist.com). Then we will all vote on the nominees to whittle down the field of contenders. After that, we make a big March Madness style bracket. Every day will be a new deathmatch of reader between two companies. The crown winner receives eternal infamy and a lucky golden pile of shit.
New rule this year: we will only accept nominations for companies that makes or sells products or services that consumers actually buy.
Let the bloodletting commence.
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RIAA website hacked. Over the weekend, some hacker-types took it upon themselves to delete the RIAA's website. [TorrentFreak]
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riaa
Sony BMG Will Drop DRM
BusinessWeek says that Sony BMG will join us here in the 21st century when they become the last of the top 4 big record companies to drop DRM. More » -
worst company in america
MP3s You've Ripped Yourself Are Still "Unauthorized" By The RIAA
Ars Technica says that the RIAA filed a brief last week that claimed that mp3 files ripped from a defendant's own CDs were "unauthorized." More » -
worst company in america
Congress Wants To Up Copyright Infringement Penalties
The usual gang of RIAA-funded suspects have introduced a bill that would boost US intellectual property laws and the penalties that go along with them, and allow the U.S. government to seize computers, says Ars Technica. More » -
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drm
Walmart Hates DRM
Ars Technica says that Walmart has given an ultimatum to "some of the largest record labels, including Warner Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, to provide more of their respective music catalogs in MP3 format (that is, without DRM) next year." More » -
rumors on the internets
EMI To Cut Funding To RIAA And Other Trade Groups?
Ever wonder why the big labels waste money funding trade groups like the RIAA? EMI, the British record company that was recently taken over by a private equity firm does, and a unnamed source tells Reuters that the new investors are thinking of cutting funding to the RIAA and other, similar trade groups. More » -
worst company in america
Is The RIAA Afraid Of Harvard?
Of all the Ivy League schools, Harvard is the only one to have escaped the deluge of RIAA pre-litigation letters. What gives? More » -
worst company in america
New Bill Would Cut Financial Aid To Schools Who Don't Police P2P, Sign Up With Napster
Ars Technica is reporting that there is a provision in a massive new education bill that would punish schools that don't police p2p traffic on their networks by cutting federal financial aid. In addition, the bill requires that schools offer an industry approved alternative to file sharing, such as Napster or Rhapsody. More » -
worst company in america
RIAA Defendant: Best Buy Replaced My Hard Drive During Warranty Repair
The RIAA defendant who lost her jury trial, Jammie Thomas, is telling her side of the story on p2pnet. Of particular interest: She claims that Best Buy made the decision to replace her hard drive, under the terms of her extended warranty, 6 months before she was served with the RIAA's subpoena. More » -
worst company in america
NIN's Trent Reznor Shared Files On OiNK, Compares iTunes To Sam Goody
Trent Reznor was a member of now-shuttered illegal file sharing website OiNK, and he's not afraid to admit it to New York Magazine: More » -
First Radiohead, then NIN and now Madonna is said to be dumping her record label, Warner Music. [Bloomberg]
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worst company in america
RIAA 1, Single Mom 0: RIAA Defendant Loses, Must Pay $222,000 For Allegedly Sharing 24 Songs
The first RIAA jury trial has ended and the single mom accused of sharing 24 songs has been ordered to pay $222,000 by a jury of her peers. More » -
worst company in america
Sony BMG: Copying Music You Own Is "Stealing" And You Are A Criminal
More silliness from the RIAA, according to Ars Technica. Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, was called to testify in the case of Capitol Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas. More » -
Tanya Andersen, RIAA defendant, has been awarded awarded attorney's fees for her nearly two-and-a-half-year fight against a copyright infringement lawsuit. [Ars Technica]
worst company in america
New York, 7:02 PM
Mon Nov 23
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