Insurance companies use consumer credit scores as one factor in determining consumer insurance premiums.  Overwhelming research finds that credit scores are highly correlated to insurance claims, which helps insurance carriers align premiums with expected losses.  However, some policymakers have questioned the “fairness” of credit scores as a partial determinant of insurance premiums.  This ConsumerGram finds [...]

Vicky Thomas Some Delco teens having tough time finding part-time work this summer, but employers say jobs are available.   Ridley High School senior Erin Maley hit each store in the Ridley Park business district and popped the same question — “Are you hiring?” “No one was,” said the 18-year-old. “I applied all over — [...]

Nearly two years ago in a ConsumerGram entitled “Facts About Financial Power in Web-Centric Companies,” we presented selected data on market structure and performance by major firms in the “Internet Value Cluster” that combine to create joint value for Internet users.  We concluded:  “By fair reckoning all of these Web sub-markets are marked by intense [...]

Some advocates are calling for blanket Internet regulations to limit or prohibit Internet providers from differentiating broadband services, developing Internet content and managing network congestion in fear that Internet providers could engage in anticompetitive behaviors, even though these proposed regulations may invariably decrease consumer welfare.  While our system of jurisprudence stresses the presumption of innocence [...]

Has the Search Advertising Market Reached a Tipping Point?    Google, the world’s largest Internet search and search/advertising company, has announced a deal with #2 rival Yahoo!, a move that could lockup over 90% share of search advertising market.  Reacting to the deal, the Department of Justice announced that it will open an investigation.  Part [...]

The debate over network management practices by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) has been waged for the most part without regard to the impact that potential legislation may have on rural wireless consumers.  The fact is that rural ISPs and their customers are, in important ways, very different from their urban counterparts.  Differences in demographics, network [...]

Prices do not always reflect costs and often for legitimate reasons.  While somebody must pay for networks, it is common for some consumers or firms to pay more than others.  In some cases, however, users or suppliers find ways to avoid or shift costs to others and thereby enrich themselves. Absent some overriding public benefit, [...]

While there are some holdout forecasters, the consensus is that the U.S. economy is in or on the threshold of serious recession that promises to halt the long trend of job creation, productivity gains, and per capita income growth Americans have enjoyed in recent years.  The prospect of economic distress has set off discussions of [...]

Policymakers are in desperate need to develop a sound and comprehensive energy policy.  However, the steps being considered – investing in more expensive alternative fuels, carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes, conservation and so on – all require consumers to make sacrifices.  This ConsumerGram looks at the evidence and finds that increased investment and use in information [...]

Citing an incident where Comcast apparently degraded its service to a handful of bandwidth-intensive online users to relieve traffic congestion and provide bandwidth to its other customers, a coalition of “public interest” groups and individuals petitioned the FCC to forbid Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from managing congestion on their networks.  However, as with the often-cited [...]