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Judge Rejects 3 Lawsuits Against Former Elmo Puppeteer

July 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment

In his 28-page ruling, dated June 28 and made public Monday, Judge John G. Koeltl said the plaintiffs — Cecil Singleton, Kevin Kiadii and an unnamed man with the initials S.M. — filed their claims “more than six years after each plaintiff reasonably should have become aware of the defendant’s alleged violations” and more than three years after each turned 18.

The plaintiffs had argued that the time limit should begin once they realized they had been harmed, not the date of what they said was the abuse. But in his ruling, Judge Koeltl wrote, “The dates on which the plaintiffs connected their psychological injuries to their victimizations are irrelevant to the dates on which their claims accrued.” Even if the plaintiffs did not recognize the extent of their injuries, he wrote, “they were aware of the defendant’s conduct toward them and could have brought claims.”

Jeff Herman, a Miami lawyer who represented the plaintiffs, said they planned to appeal, adding in a statement that “we believe that the victims in this case are within the statute of limitations.”

Mr. Clash, who last month won three Daytime Emmy Awards for his “Sesame Street” work, resigned from the program in November when the accusations began surfacing. He was the voice of the character Elmo for nearly three decades.

In a statement, Mr. Clash’s lawyer, Michael G. Berger, said his client was pleased by the decision, calling it a step toward putting “these spurious claims behind him, so that Kevin can go about the business of reclaiming his personal life and his professional standing.” He added that Mr. Clash “is looking forward to a time in the near future when he can tell his story free of innuendo and false claims.”

A spokesman for Mr. Clash, Nicholas F. Peters of the CommCore Consulting Group, said the puppeteer was not giving interviews.

Another lawsuit from a plaintiff identified as D.O. was voluntarily withdrawn in April, and a fifth lawsuit, filed in Pennsylvania by Mr. Clash’s original accuser, Sheldon Stephens, remains outstanding.

Sesame Workshop said it had no comment on Judge Koeltl’s ruling.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/business/media/three-lawsuits-against-elmo-creator-dismissed.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: , ,

Google Faces More Inquiries in Europe Over Privacy Policy

April 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Data protection agencies in Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands said on Tuesday that they were moving to take action against Google over the policy, which the company introduced last year. They joined the French regulator, which had initiated a European Union inquiry on behalf of its counterparts across the 27-nation bloc.

While the regulators have repeatedly threatened the company with tough talk of a united front, the news on Tuesday reflects the reality that privacy laws are fragmented across the European Union, giving Google little incentive to yield.

Enforcement is a matter for national agencies, rather than Brussels. But the French data protection agency, which is known by the initials C.N.I.L., said it would cooperate with the other countries as they step up their scrutiny.

The C.N.I.L. said it had “notified Google of the initiation of an inspection procedure,” the latest step in a drawn-out investigation that began more than a year ago, when the agency said it thought the company’s privacy policy violated European Union law. Other agencies said they would conduct their own inquiries, building on the work of the C.N.I.L.

The Google privacy policy streamlined the individual practices that had been in place across more than 60 Google services, from its search engine to its online mapping operation to YouTube.

The company said at the time that this was necessary to provide clarity to users, and to improve its services.

But European regulators, led by the C.N.I.L., said that the company had been insufficiently forthcoming about its use of personal data, especially when the information was used across different services for purposes like advertising.

Last October, the heads of the 27 regulatory agencies wrote to Google’s chief executive, Larry Page, demanding changes in the policy. They asked the company to do so within four months or risk sanctions.

“After this period has expired, Google has not implemented any significant compliance measures,” the C.N.I.L. said in a statement.

Google has insisted that its use of data complies with European Union law, and it stood by that position Tuesday. “We have engaged fully with the data protection authorities involved throughout this process, and we’ll continue to do so going forward,” the company said.

Each of the national regulators now investigating Google has different procedures and enforcement powers.

In France, for example, the C.N.I.L. can fine privacy violators up to 300,000 euros, or about $385,000 — a drop in the bucket for a global giant like Google. In some countries, regulators can bring criminal complaints; in others, they cannot.

The European Commission, led by its vice president, Viviane Reding, has been pushing for an overhaul of the bloc’s privacy laws, under which data protection would be centrally regulated. But the idea faces opposition from some member states.

The announcement on Tuesday means the investigations into the privacy policy could continue for months, during which time Google could continue to keep the system in place.

“It is essential regulators find a sanction that is not just a slap on the wrists and will make Google think twice before it ignores consumer rights again,” said Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, a privacy advocacy group in Britain.

Separately, Google this week announced plans to replace its director of privacy for product and engineering, Alma Whitten, who helped create the privacy policy. Lawrence You, who helped start the team, will take over.

The privacy team at Google, which has 350 employees, was started in 2010 after two privacy blunders at the company involving improper data collection by Street View cars and Buzz, an ill-fated social networking tool.

The privacy team does things like coach Google engineers on adding more privacy-friendly features to products, building tools like dashboards for Google users to control how their information is shared and making it more difficult for hackers to break into Gmail accounts.

The company said that the retirement of Ms. Whitten, who is in her 40s, had been planned and was unrelated to the European Union news.

“Alma has done so much to improve our products and protect our users,” Chris Gaither, a Google spokesman, said in a statement. “The privacy and security teams, and everyone else at Google, will continue this hard work to ensure that our users’ data is kept safe and secure.”

Claire Cain Miller contributed reporting.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/technology/google-to-face-national-regulators-over-privacy-policy.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

AAA Rating Is a Rarity in Business

August 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Scores of big corporations have lost their AAA status in recent years — only four non-financial companies continue to hold the rating — as it became seen in board rooms as more of a straitjacket than a path to riches. Just as many consumers relied on their credit cards to finance a higher standard of living, companies took on more debt to reap bigger returns.

The choice did not appear to hurt them. The borrowing costs of companies with AAA ratings and those one level below are not that far apart. Investors, in other words, do not see much difference in quality.

“It’s like you are going from a Rolls-Royce to a Mercedes — not from a Rolls-Royce to a Yugo,” said Chris Orndorff, a senior portfolio manager for the bond giant Western Asset Management. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

More and more, in fact, companies have found that a AAA credit rating is not something worth aspiring to if a more conservative approach means lower profits.

Today, markets often render credit judgments before the rating agencies can take out their pens, so a downgrade has a less noticeable effect. By that time, many of the traditional benefits of being deemed AAA, like lower borrowing costs and reputational glow, have evaporated.

In the early 1980s, around 60 companies had AAA credit. By 2000, the number of AAA companies was about 15. Today just four corporations— Automatic Data Processing, Exxon Mobil, Johnson Johnson and Microsoft — can claim those once-coveted three initials. (Five big insurers and several government affiliated organizations can too.)

Analysts say corporate buyouts and acquisitions accelerated the trend. Many AAA companies lost their ratings when they were taken over and their new owners loaded them with cheap debt to help pay for the deal. Other strategic decisions also triggered downgrades.

UPS, for example, struck a long-term agreement with its union workers in fall 2007 that raised pay and benefits but froze certain pension obligations. Soon after, the ratings agencies started knocking down the company’s credit rating to AA because of the new pension arrangement.

“Maintaining a AAA rating is not a financial goal of this company,” a UPS spokesman said at the time. Investors barely reacted. In the three months after the downgrade, yields on UPS bonds responded by increasing about 0.4 percentage point from 5.32 percent. Today, with borrowers enjoying ultra-low interest rates, the bond yields are back to their levels in late 2007.

Meanwhile, the financial crisis and deep recession laid into several of the sturdiest pillars of American capitalism. Berkshire Hathaway, General Electric and Pfizer all lost their AAA ratings.

Still, a funny thing happened when these companies were sent down to AA. Investors shrugged off the change; the markets had already rendered their verdict. Borrowing costs for General Electric and Berkshire actually fell in the weeks after they were downgraded in spring 2009, amid a broader market rally.

“The rating agencies were late to the party,” said Mr. Orndorff, the bond investor.

Ratings for companies and countries are viewed differently, even if they are evaluated in much the same way.

For most Americans, the prospect that the government could lose its AAA credit rating is almost unthinkable — a blow to national pride and consumer confidence that could turn out to be more damaging than any increase in borrowing costs.

That is why even after President Obama signed a law on Tuesday that lifted the debt ceiling, some in Washington were worried that the plan’s spending cuts were not deep enough to appease all the major rating agencies.

For now, all three major rating firms continue to give the United States a AAA rating. But on Tuesday, Moody’s said its outlook was negative after putting the government on notice last month that it could be downgraded. Fitch said on Tuesday that it planned to complete another review of the government’s finances by the end of this month, and Standard Poor’s has warned that the United States might lose its rating if it did not sharply rein in the deficit.

It helps, of course, that the dollar remains the world’s leading currency, ensuring that demand for United States debt is strong in spite of the nation’s myriad financial challenges.

But the truth is, even as the government maintained its AAA grade, the markets suggested long ago that the United States was no longer deserving of such a high rating.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=862ecbf25a8d5504f4710bc7b76ee052

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,