On-Line Evil Marketing

A scam marketing organization, Best Brand Values, was selling goods online, but in the checkout process if the buyer pushed a blinking "Free Shipping" button, they were secretly enrolled in a "shopping club" run by the scammers and automatically billed $10 - $20 / month.  I have had a similar thing happen to me and I know how frustrating it is to deal with thieves like them.

The Oregon DOJ finally caught up with them and put a stop to it.

“It’s wrong and they’re taking advantage of people, often taking advantage of elderly people, and it’s evil,” said Jeff Manning, with the state Attorney General’s office.
As part of the Oregon settlement, he says, the company has agreed to change its websites to more clearly warn consumers about membership fees.  And it will pay $300,000 to a Justice Department consumer protection fund.
Iowa and Florida reached similar settlements with Best Brand Values.

Oregon DOJ Goes After Doctors Taking Kickbacks

The Oregonian is reporting that doctors who receive money from medical device makers have to divulge that to their patients as a potential conflict of interest.

The case could ripple nationwide, exposing a little-known but common practice of payments to doctors from implant manufacturers. Locally, for instance, the practice is tolerated by the biggest hospitals in the state who do not require patients be informed of such payments. The DOJ case could do for the artificial-implant makers what similar court cases did for drug companies' payments to doctors, says Jerry Avorn,  a Harvard Medical School professor who has written about the ethics of undisclosed physician payments.
"The patient has a right to expect that whatever device is implanted or procedure is recommended is a decision that is based solely on what that patient would most benefit from," he said, calling the case "potentially so important."

Oregon's Unlawful Trade Practices Act requires that professionals disclose this sort of information when providing services. And by failing to, the doctors were leading the patient to believe they were free of any conflict of interest and doing the implants "for the exclusive benefit of the patient ... when this was not the case," according to the DOJ.

I'm glad to see this practice receiving more scrutiny.