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- A nonprofit promised to preserve wildlife. Then it made millions claiming it could cut down trees
- dWeb.News Daily Round-Up From Daniel Webster dWeb Internet Cowboy
- Prices Skyrocket — on EVERYTHING
- This incredible new feature might come to the Apple Watch Series 7
- California legal rulings may have big impact on Amazon’s liability for third-party products it sells
- Melinda Gates reportedly consulted with divorce lawyers since 2019
- Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of May 2, 2021
- Importance of Paid Social Media
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| A nonprofit promised to preserve wildlife. Then it made millions claiming it could cut down trees Posted: 10 May 2021 02:39 AM PDT The Massachusetts Audubon Society has long managed its land in western Massachusetts as crucial wildlife habitat. Nature lovers flock to these forests to enjoy bird-watching and quiet hikes, with the occasional bobcat or moose sighting. But in 2015, the conservation nonprofit presented California's top climate regulator with a startling scenario: It could heavily log 9,700 acres of its preserved forests over the next few years. The group raised the possibility of chopping down hundreds of thousands of trees as part of its application to take part in California's forest offset program. The state's Air Resources Board established the system to harness the ability of trees to absorb and store carbon to help the state meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. The program allows forest owners like Mass Audubon to earn so-called carbon credits for preserving trees. Each credit represents a ton of CO2. California polluters, such as oil companies, buy these credits so that they can emit more CO2 than they'd otherwise be allowed to under state law. Theoretically, the exchange should balance out emissions to prevent an overall increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. The Air Resources Board accepted Mass Audubon's project into its program, requiring the nonprofit to preserve its forests over the next century instead of heavily logging them. The nonprofit received more than 600,000 credits in exchange for its promise. The vast majority were sold through intermediaries to oil and gas companies, records show. The group earned about $6 million from the sales, Mass Audubon regional scientist Tom Lautzenheiser said. On paper, the deal was a success. The fossil fuel companies were able emit more CO2 while abiding by California's climate laws. Mass Audubon earned enough money to acquire additional land for preservation, and to hire new staff working on climate change. But it didn't work out as well for the climate, unless Mass Audubon actually intended to start acting more like a timber company. The project wouldn't achieve anywhere near the claimed levels of reduced carbon emissions if the nonprofit was getting credits for forests that were never in danger of aggressive logging. And every time a polluter uses a credit that didn't actually save a ton of carbon, net emissions go up, undermining the point of the program. In order for California's system to work, carbon market experts say, the program must cause carbon savings that wouldn't have happened in the absence of the program. If Mass Audubon had already planned to preserve the forest, then the carbon credits program is paying to save trees that were never at risk. The concept in question is known as "additionality." And how regulators create rules to ensure it happens is at the heart of the debate about whether California's carbon offset program is actually benefiting the environment. To the Air Resources Board, the landowner's intent is not important. So long as the land could have been logged in a way that is legal, doesn't lose money, and doesn't exceed typical logging practices in that region, the agency's rules treat the savings to the atmosphere as real. Some offset researchers argue that the state's approach allows landowners to claim credits for trees that were never in danger. New research by the San Francisco nonprofit CarbonPlan provides evidence that this is occurring: It shows that landowners in the program routinely maximize the number of trees they assert they could chop down if they weren't given carbon credits, even if they have little history of logging or have mission statements in sharp opposition to such practices. The research suggests the program could be significantly exaggerating the amount of carbon savings achieved. "The nearly universal pattern we see in the data," said Danny Cullenward, policy director at CarbonPlan and a coauthor of the study, corroborates concerns that "those projects are not delivering real climate benefits." That finding was one piece of a larger study that concluded the program issued tens of millions of carbon credits that don't achieve real climate benefits. As ProPublica and MIT Technology Review reported recently, those ghost credits were the result of oversimplified calculations of average carbon levels in forests. The Air Resources Board defended the program and its approval of Mass Audubon's project. The agency said the project met the agency's criteria for additionality. It would be "unrealistic and impractical" to develop rules that require regulators "to essentially read the mind of each project developer," said Dave Clegern, a spokesperson for the agency. Clegern noted that environmental groups sued the Air Resources Board over its forest offset program in 2012. An appellate court ruled that the agency had reasonably interpreted the law in assessing additionality this way. "We've litigated and won the right to define it as our program does, and implement it as we have," Clegern said. "Their study judges California's program by their standard which has no legal basis." However improbable the idea might be of a conservation group actually permitting the removal of so much timber, Mass Audubon officials said they had simply followed the state's rules in claiming that the society could heavily log its forest. Mass Audubon "would not have done this," Lautzenheiser said in an interview, "if we felt like the benefits to the atmosphere weren't real." When asked whether the nonprofit intended to log to the levels laid out in the documents, Lautzenheiser did not directly answer. "We don't agree with the premise of your question. We are confident that our project provides a net carbon benefit to the atmosphere because it meets all additionality requirements" of California's program, he said. "Mass Audubon is participating in this program in good faith, has implemented a project meeting all relevant standards, and through the project has reinforced its commitment to the long-term stewardship of enrolled forestlands," Lautzenheiser said. Setting the floorBy their nature, forest offset systems create incentives for landowners to exaggerate the amount of logging possible on their property. Landowners who assert they would have cut down all their trees can earn more credits and make more money than landowners who propose to cut down less of their forest. Earlier offset programs sought to limit this by confirming what each project owner had genuinely intended to do. But it's nearly impossible to know what might have happened in the absence of the program, creating problems that led to significant overcrediting, according to earlier analyses. California's Air Resources Board tried to address this problem with objective criteria, creating standards that all projects could be judged against in the same way. The state's program prevents landowners from asserting that all of their trees are available for logging. Instead, it sets a floor based on how typical private landowners harvest their forests, using federal data on the average carbon levels stored in similar forest types in the region. Landowners must submit logging scenarios that, on average over a hundred years, do not fall below this floor. CarbonPlan's research shows that landowners are submitting project applications that consistently approach the floor set by the Air Resources Board. It found that nearly 90% of the 65 projects analyzed cited future logging possibilities that fell less than 5% above the floor. Mass Audubon's scenario was even closer, at 0.2%. The state approved these projects even though it's highly unlikely that almost all the landowners were about to start chopping down their trees to carbon levels so close to the floor, Cullenward said. In conducting the systemwide analysis of the program, CarbonPlan's researchers also noticed that conservation organizations like Mass Audubon were regularly participating in the program. They identified at least a dozen projects involving forests that wouldn't seem to be at risk of aggressive logging. Clegern said the program's safeguards prevent the problems identified by CarbonPlan. California's offsets are considered additional carbon reductions because the floor serves "as a conservative backstop," Clegern said. Without it, he explained, many landowners could have logged to even lower levels in the absence of offsets. Clegern added that the agency's rules were adopted as a result of a lengthy process of debate and were upheld by the courts. A California Court of Appeal found the Air Resources Board had the discretion to use a standardized approach to evaluate whether projects were additional. But the court did not make an independent determination about the effectiveness of the standard, and was "quite deferential to the agency's judgment," said Alice Kaswan, a law professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, in an email. California law requires the state's cap-and-trade regulations to ensure that emissions reductions are "real, permanent, quantifiable, verifiable" and "in addition to any other greenhouse gas emission reduction that otherwise would occur." "If there's new scientific information that suggests serious questions about the integrity of offsets, then, arguably, CARB has an ongoing duty to consider that information and revise their protocols accordingly," Kaswan said. "The agency's obligation is to implement the law, and the law requires additionality." The recipeOn an early spring day, Lautzenheiser, the Audubon scientist, brought a reporter to a forest protected by the offset project. The trees here were mainly tall white pines mixed with hemlocks, maples and oaks. Lautzenheiser is usually the only human in this part of the woods, where he spends hours looking for rare plants or surveying stream salamanders. The nonprofit's planning documents acknowledge that the forests enrolled in California's program were protected long before they began generating offsets: "A majority of the project area has been conserved and designated as high conservation value forest for many years with deliberate management focused on long-term natural resource conservation values." Lautzenheiser said there's no contradiction between active forest management and conservation, as Mass Audubon routinely logs some of its land to maintain crucial habitat. Forests, wetlands and other ecosystems that store carbon are being destroyed every day, and "we simply have no chance" of meeting necessary climate targets without maintaining and restoring these lands, he said in an email. The world needs to scale up these types of "natural climate solutions," he said, and "we need them now." When asked about Mass Audubon's logging scenario, he said the numbers were modeled by Finite Carbon, an offsets project developer that handled most of the technical work. There are legitimate discussions about how to set a floor, Lautzenheiser said, and the board settled on "a fair standard." Finite Carbon was just following "the recipe" laid out by the Air Resources Board, he said. Finite Carbon, which oil giant BP acquired a majority stake in late last year, did not respond to specific questions about the project. In a statement, the company said all of its projects "have undergone review by the ARB as well as an independent, ARB-accredited auditor to ensure full compliance with Board protocols." Energy company Phillips 66 bought 500,000 of the credits from Mass Audubon's project, while Shell and the Southern California Gas Company acquired another 140,000, according to the latest data from the board. Researchers said the board must do a better job of evaluating whether projects are truly benefiting the climate. Mark Trexler, a former offset project developer who spent decades studying additionality, said the Air Resources Board needs to scrutinize its projects to determine whether all the credits are truly additional and, if not, how many dubious credits were issued. "Unless you have an answer to that question, you have no business implementing" a program, he said. Barbara Haya, a coauthor of the CarbonPlan study, said the state's approach could work, but must be closely monitored. If the approach leads to some projects with too many credits and others with too few, then the system should balance out, preventing additional emissions, said Haya, who leads the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project at the University of California, Berkeley. "What matters is the quality of the credits as a whole, not every single individual credit," she said. The board, however, hasn't provided this kind of assessment and doesn't accept the premise that any of its credits might not be additional. Mortgaging the atmosphereConservation groups stress that offset programs have helped to create financial incentives to protect forests, and have provided funding that some have used to purchase and preserve additional land that might otherwise have been logged. John Nickerson, a consultant at Climate Action Reserve, a nonprofit that helped to develop California's offset rules, said landowners face financial pressure to log or develop their land. The average forest owner holds on to their property for 20 years before selling it; without offsets, he noted, trees are only valued for their timber. "You take away this and we're back to fighting timber wars," he said. "The risk for which projects are credited is real," Nickerson said. But even if some landowners are using the offsets proceeds to acquire more land, the carbon math still needs to balance out across the whole system to ensure it's not producing more emissions than it's preventing. "I think what's happening is a lot of these organizations are mortgaging the atmosphere to accomplish conservation goals," said Grayson Badgley, a postdoctoral fellow at Black Rock Forest and Columbia University, and the lead researcher on the CarbonPlan study. "It's totally true that they need money," he said, and "they've convinced themselves that the only way they can get the money is through offsets." But, he continued, "by pretending they're working, we're locking ourselves in this Faustian bargain," in which California achieves conservation goals at the cost of climate ones. Other researchers have also spotted signs that credits might be going to projects that weren't likely to be aggressively logged. A 2016 paper pointed out that many of the early participants in California's forest offset program were conservation nonprofits. Their carbon-rich forests were already well above the program's floors and thus well-suited to earn a large number of credits. While the state program may provide funds to these groups that could help them acquire new land, it's not likely that the offsets were changing practices in the forests they enrolled, the study concluded. "It is an additionality problem," said Erin Kelly, an associate professor of forest policy and administration at Humboldt State University and lead author of the 2016 paper. 'Willful blindness'Industry insiders said landowners could theoretically log to levels far below the floor set by the board, so it's no surprise that many submit proposals that maximize the amount of logging they could be doing. "I'm sure that these sophisticated project developers set up their modeling systems to run iterations until they can accomplish just that," Nickerson said with a laugh. For a handful of projects, the documents state this outright, Badgley found. That includes one in Wisconsin where developer Bluesource wrote in its paperwork that it used software to model numerous logging levels for every acre of the project until it found a combination that produced carbon levels "equal" to the floor set by the board. Emily Six, the marketing and communications manager for Bluesource, confirmed in an email that the company uses modeling and optimization software to arrive at these results. But she disputed that this exaggerates potential logging levels, noting that even if a landowner hadn't planned to log aggressively, "a spike in timber prices or mounting economic pressures" could change their minds "at any point over the 100-year project timeframe." Trexler, the former project developer, said that line of reasoning is "absurd." The credibility of any logging plan depends on current conditions and intentions, not what might happen decades later, he said. Trexler has despaired over what he called a "willful blindness" to this fundamental problem. Like an offsets Cassandra, he's repeatedly issued warnings on how false savings threaten the integrity of offsets everywhere. Without better assurances that credits represent carbon savings that wouldn't have happened otherwise, "all we're doing is creating a massive market for creative accounting," he said. Years ago, Trexler proposed a scoring system to distinguish high-quality offsets — those with a high likelihood of achieving real climate benefits — from lower-quality projects, to improve transparency in the carbon market. But the concept never took off, he said. He no longer works on offset programs. "I've sort of checked out," he said. "I've simply concluded we're never going to do it well." ProPublica research reporter Doris Burke contributed to this report. How We Got the StoryProPublica and MIT Technology Review decided to collaborate on this project because of our respective track records of reporting on carbon offsets. In 2019, ProPublica reporter Lisa Song wrote about problems with international forest offsets and California's cap-and-trade program. Separately, Technology Review editor James Temple spent much of 2019 and 2020 reporting on the promises and challenges of carbon removal efforts, including the Air Resources Board's compliance carbon offset program. Both Song and Temple had independently interviewed several co-authors of the CarbonPlan report for their respective stories. In late 2020, when CarbonPlan was partway through its analysis, study co-author Danny Cullenward pitched the study as a story to Technology Review. Temple then contacted Song to discuss a reporting partnership. We decided that such a complex, technical story would benefit from a newsroom collaboration. Cullenward, a lecturer at Stanford Law School and CarbonPlan's policy director, had studied California's climate policy system for years. In 2019, Cullenward and ecologist Grayson Badgley, his former colleague from the Carnegie Institution for Science, decided to analyze the state's offset program in a comprehensive way after attending a workshop where they learned more about how the program's rules were designed. (Cullenward is also vice-chair of the Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee, a group of experts convened by the California Environmental Protection Agency to advise the Air Resources Board on cap and trade. Cullenward said his work at CarbonPlan doesn't speak for the committee.) In early 2020, Cullenward joined the startup CarbonPlan. The nonprofit assesses the scientific integrity of carbon removal efforts. That includes various types of carbon offsets, as well as emerging technologies that remove CO2 from the air. CarbonPlan receives project-specific funding from companies and other organizations. For instance, Stripe paid CarbonPlan to evaluate different carbon removal options. Microsoft also paid CarbonPlan to study how climate change would affect the ability of forests to mitigate global warming. CarbonPlan used part of that funding to digitize the forest carbon offset project documents in California's program. Badgley, a postdoctoral fellow at Black Rock Forest and Columbia University, digitized those records and was paid as a consultant by CarbonPlan. CarbonPlan then used separate unrestricted funding (from various individuals and foundations) to study those projects, working with Badgley and other scientists including Barbara Haya, who leads the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project at UC-Berkeley. Its study is focused on the primary form of forest offsets in California's program, called Improved Forest Management. These IFM projects reward landowners for managing their forests in ways that prevent further emissions or absorb more carbon over time. In part because the study hadn't been submitted to a scientific journal, which would include a formal peer review process, we took added steps to check its quality. First, we did a gut check and interviewed several forest experts to confirm the report's basic premise. Weeks later, when CarbonPlan completed a draft, we sent it to several outside scientists for a detailed review, including Heather Lynch, Professor of Ecology & Evolution at Stony Brook University, and a member of ProPublica's data advisory board; Dan Sanchez, who directs the Carbon Removal Laboratory at UC-Berkeley; and David Valentine, Chair of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. These scientists are all experts on forests, climate change, the carbon cycle and/or carbon removal. They all have at least a general understanding of California's offsets, but do not work for offset developers. We also sent the study to a fourth scientist, Hunter Stanke, a Ph.D. student in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington. Stanke developed the rFIA software that CarbonPlan used in its analysis. The software analyzes raw data from the Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, often used by academics, government agencies and timber companies for purposes unrelated to offsets. Before the newsrooms sent Stanke the study, he had provided technical assistance on rFIA to the lead author of the CarbonPlan study, but he wasn't aware CarbonPlan was using the software to study offsets. All four scientists praised the study and its methodology. They asked for clarification on several technical details, which we sent to CarbonPlan. The nonprofit incorporated some minor suggestions into its final draft, but said the changes didn't alter the overall findings.When we published the first story in this series, CarbonPlan posted the study on its website, along with all of its methodology and code and the raw, digitized files of all the carbon offset project documents. CarbonPlan has also submitted the study for publication in a research journal. This story was co-published with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive their biggest stories as soon as they're published. The Massachusetts Audubon Society has long managed its land in western Massachusetts as crucial wildlife habitat. Nature lovers flock to these forests to enjoy bird-watching and quiet hikes, with the occasional bobcat or moose sighting. But in 2015, the conservation nonprofit presented California's top climate regulator with a startling scenario: It could heavily log 9,700…Carbon sequestration, Climate change  | ||||||||||||
| dWeb.News Daily Round-Up From Daniel Webster dWeb Internet Cowboy Posted: 09 May 2021 07:29 PM PDT  dWeb.News Daily Round-Up From Daniel Webster dWeb Internet Cowboy Prices Skyrocket — On EVERYTHING While hosting "SNL," Elon Musk acknowledges having Asperger's … and riffs on Dogecoin Melinda Gates reportedly consulted with divorce lawyers since 2019 Massive CyberAttack Shuts Down Pipeline Carrying 45 Percent of East Coast Fuel How We Can Help Children In Rural Communities Thrive The risk of ADHD may be lower if children grow up in green environments Amazon employee at Bessemer, Alabama fulfillment center dies Walt Disney World, Universal Studios to end temperature checks for guests For these stories, plus more worldwide and technology news go to dWeb.News #PricesRise #Fuelprices #ElonMusk #spacetourism #JeffBezos #BlueOrigin #AgTech #WaltDisneyWorld #UniversalStudios #temperaturecheck #Amazon #SNL #Aspergers #dogecoin #MelindaGates #BillGates #CyberAttack #Ransomware #Pipeline #Children #kids #Rural #ADHD #Green #Environment  | ||||||||||||
| Prices Skyrocket — on EVERYTHING Posted: 09 May 2021 07:08 PM PDT  By Daniel Webster dWeb.News Prices are skyrocketing – on everything.  Lumber is hitting an all time high. Copper and steel prices have reached records. Agriculture is being hit hard, with the price of corn at its highest since 2012. Same with soybeans. Blocks of cheese futures are soaring. Yes, even diapers have gone up with Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble warning customers of more diaper price hikes. Computer chips are in short supply, causing their prices to rise. Of course, fuel prices are inflamed, which will be passed on to consumers for everything from groceries to electronics. The great chicken freak-out of 2021 has prices nearly double. NATIONAL AVERAGE GAS PRICES from AAA for May 9, 2021
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| This incredible new feature might come to the Apple Watch Series 7 Posted: 09 May 2021 12:41 PM PDT  Apple will launch the new Apple Watch Series 7 later this year alongside its upcoming iPhone 13 handsets. Apple has been upgrading the Watch's health monitoring capabilities with each generation, and the Apple Watch Series 7 will be no different. The wearable is already rumored to sport what could easily be the most exciting sensor ever placed in a smartwatch, although reports are split on whether Apple will launch the feature this year or on the Apple Watch Series 8 in 2022. It's a blood glucose sensor that could perform passive blood sugar readings and help diabetes patients manage their condition. Apple just sent a survey to some of its Watch customers where it asks specifically whether they use the gadget to keep track of nutrition-related parameters, including blood glucose. Today’s Top DealAirPods Pro are finally back in stock at Amazon… at the lowest price of 2021!Price: $197.00
Measuring blood sugar is a tedious, invasive task that involves obtaining a blood sample and using a gadget to get readings. Knowing one's blood glucose levels is a key aspect of diabetes management. The condition affects more than 34 million adults in the US; a significant portion of them might be undiagnosed. According to WHO statistics, the number of worldwide people with diabetes rose from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. The novel coronavirus illness might itself have triggered diabetes in some COVID-19 survivors, including children. Diabetes is a significant risk factor in COVID-19, which is why managing blood glucose is more critical right now than ever. People who have diabetes often require medication, and many of them need insulin therapy. Knowing blood glucose levels is necessary for dosing insulin and having the Apple Watch perform non-invasive readings at all times could also prevent a diabetes-related condition called hypoglycemia. Apple doesn't disclose plans for next-gen products, but 9to5Mac obtained a survey that Apple sent to Apple Watch users in Brazil that mentions blood glucose monitoring apps. Apple is asking users to provide feedback on their Apple Watch experiences. The survey asks about the wearable's health features, including step counting, flights of stairs climbed, and the Workout app. It also asks about third-party apps for managing health data, including tracking workouts, monitoring eating habits, and managing healthcare. Included in that last category are apps for tracking medications and blood glucose levels. This isn't enough to confirm that Apple Watch Series 7 will feature a blood sugar sensor. But the blog points out that Apple did send out surveys before containing hints of features that might have been in development. In early 2020, Apple asked iPhone users actually used the power adapter that came with the box — the company ended up shipping its iPhone 12 models without included power adapters later that year. Similarly, a survey asked iPhone users what they thought about using Face ID with face masks on, and then Apple added a feature in iOS 14.5 that lets users unlock the iPhone with an Apple Watch while wearing a mask. Separately, a report a few days ago said that Apple might have even more advanced sensors in Apple Watch devices. In addition to a blood glucose monitor, the wearable might measure blood pressure and alcohol levels. Today’s Top DealShoppers are swarming Amazon to get the Roomba 675 robot vacuum while it’s only $199!Price: $199.00 Measuring blood sugar is a tedious, invasive task that involves obtaining a blood sample and using a gadget to get readings. Knowing one's blood glucose levels is a key aspect of diabetes management. The condition affects more than 34 million adults in the US; a significant portion of them might be undiagnosed. According to WHO statistics, the number of worldwide people with diabetes rose from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. The novel coronavirus illness might itself have triggered diabetes in some COVID-19 survivors, including children. Diabetes is a significant risk factor in COVID-19, which is why managing blood glucose is more critical right now than ever. People who have diabetes often require medication, and many of them need insulin therapy. Knowing blood glucose levels is necessary for dosing insulin and having the Apple Watch perform non-invasive readings at all times could also prevent a diabetes-related condition called hypoglycemia. Apple doesn't disclose plans for next-gen products, but 9to5Mac obtained a survey that Apple sent to Apple Watch users in Brazil that mentions blood glucose monitoring apps. Apple is asking users to provide feedback on their Apple Watch experiences. The survey asks about the wearable's health features, including step counting, flights of stairs climbed, and the Workout app. It also asks about third-party apps for managing health data, including tracking workouts, monitoring eating habits, and managing healthcare. Included in that last category are apps for tracking medications and blood glucose levels. This isn't enough to confirm that Apple Watch Series 7 will feature a blood sugar sensor. But the blog points out that Apple did send out surveys before containing hints of features that might have been in development. In early 2020, Apple asked iPhone users actually used the power adapter that came with the box — the company ended up shipping its iPhone 12 models without included power adapters later that year. Similarly, a survey asked iPhone users what they thought about using Face ID with face masks on, and then Apple added a feature in iOS 14.5 that lets users unlock the iPhone with an Apple Watch while wearing a mask. Separately, a report a few days ago said that Apple might have even more advanced sensors in Apple Watch devices. In addition to a blood glucose monitor, the wearable might measure blood pressure and alcohol levels.Apple, Apple Watch  | ||||||||||||
| California legal rulings may have big impact on Amazon’s liability for third-party products it sells Posted: 09 May 2021 11:39 AM PDT  (BigStock Photo) In November 2015, Kisha Loomis signed on to Amazon and ordered her son a hoverboard, a two-wheeled vehicle popular with kids and balanced with gyroscopic gears. Just more than four weeks later, on New Year's Eve, its lithium ion battery exploded and the hoverboard burst into flames, setting Loomis' bed on fire. Loomis, who lives near Sacramento, suffered burns fighting the blaze and sued, accusing Amazon of selling her a faulty and dangerous product. Amazon countered that the hoverboard was sold on its platform by a third-party company based in China and the Seattle retail giant therefore shouldn't be held liable for a product it didn't manufacture, sell or ship. Last month, California's Second Appellate District Court disagreed, saying Amazon was an integral part of the hoverboard's supply chain and can be held liable for Loomis' injuries and other damages. The ruling is among a pair of cases that could have a big impact on Amazon's operations and the broader e-commerce landscape. Last year, in a case known as Bolger v. Amazon.com LLC, a California appeals court held that Amazon was liable for an exploding laptop battery, partly because it had been shipped through Amazon's Fulfilled by Amazon service, which stores and ships merchandise for third-party retailers. The decision involving Loomis' exploding hoverboard takes that ruling a step further, holding Amazon liable even though it never stored nor shipped the hoverboard. Both cases represent the first time consumers have been meaningfully successful in holding Amazon liable for dangerous third-party products sold on its platform, said Jeremy Robinson, a partner with the San Diego law firm CaseyGerry who argued the Bolger case and assisted with the Loomis suit. Jeremy Robinson. (CaseyGerry Photo) "Although they claim that they're just sort of a hands-off platform that's not really how they operate," Robinson said of Amazon. In many cases, he added, "they don't even allow you to communicate with the actual third-party vendor or manufacturer. It's all through Amazon." The rulings could potentially impact a huge chunk of Amazon's business model. The company has millions of third-party sellers on its platform, and third-party sales make up about 55% of sales on Amazon, according to the market research site Statista. Revenue from third-party seller services hit $23.7 billion in the first quarter of this year, up 60% year-over-year. Meanwhile, overall e-commerce has boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Amazon has been the biggest beneficiary of that shift in consumer behavior. The company's net sales increased 44% to 108.5 billion in this year's first quarter compared to the same period last year. Amazon faces a monumental task in policing all of those sellers to ensure they're providing authentic and safe products, and the California rulings may bring new urgency to that effort. E-commerce companies such as eBay and Etsy also will likely now find themselves exposed to additional liability. Last month's ruling (read in full below) also underscores a problem across the U.S.: Many consumer protection laws, which vary from state to state, were written long before e-commerce existed and are out of date. The Loomis and Bolger rulings are an example of courts grappling with and setting new precedent for rules to protect online shoppers. "As Amazon's (court) losses pile up, it becomes harder for Amazon to maintain it should be exempt from strict liability for defective products," John Bair, a settlement consultant who has represented the families of airline crash victims and 9/11 victims, wrote earlier this month in a blog post. "Courts are coming to terms with Amazon's role in product distribution and its responsibility for protecting consumers." Lawmakers are also trying to catch up. Last year, the California Legislature considered a bill that would hold e-commerce companies to the same standard as the Loomis ruling. Surprisingly, Amazon supported the legislation, which eventually died in the state Senate, while other e-commerce companies such as Google, Facebook, Etsy and eBay opposed it. Day 2: How this third-party Amazon seller turned the tech giant's knockoff product into a winWhy did Amazon support the legislation while simultaneously mounting vigorous defenses in the Loomis and Bolger cases? Two reasons, Robinson said: Amazon realizes courts and lawmakers are increasingly likely to hold it liable for third-party products, and the company, the world's biggest online retailer, has enough cash to withstand liability claims while its competitors may not. "I think Amazon sees this as a potential competitive advantage," he said, "because they may actually have the infrastructure and the money to be able to deal with this type of liability where some of the other marketplaces don't." In addition, much in the way Amazon fought paying state sales taxes for years then relented when it became clear it wasn't going to prevail, Amazon now understands it won't overcome consumer protection laws either, Robinson said. "For one reason or another the states are going to catch up with them. So I think their position now is that they lean into that — they're all for it … with the proviso that everyone gets held to the same standard," Robinson said. In what would amount to a sort of "hail mary" play, Robinson suggested, Amazon may take the Loomis case to the California Supreme Court. "They don't really have anything to lose at this point, so they may try it, just to see what happens," he said. "But ultimately, I think they kind of understand that this is where things are headed. And they're going to try to get out ahead of the curve and deal with it." Robinson said he wouldn't be surprised if Amazon tightened its vetting process for third-party sellers, requiring additional proof that electronics meet consumer protection standards and taking extra measures to ensure those products are being sold by a legitimate business. "Amazon is going to have to make a decision, because it's probably true that they can't vet every single seller and every single product on their website," he said. "They may start vetting vendors a little more carefully." Amazon declined to comment specifically on the Loomis case, but a spokeswoman said the company "invests heavily in the safety and authenticity of all products offered in our store including proactively vetting sellers and products before being listed, and continuously monitoring our store for signals of a concern." In contrast to its support for the now-dead California consumer protection legislation, Amazon has put up a tough fight in court when it comes to the matter. In the Loomis case, Amazon argued that it couldn't be held liable because the faulty hoverboard was sold on its e-commerce platform by a third-party seller. Amazon said it functioned much like a shopping mall, simply offering space for other retailers to sell their wares. But in last month's decision, the appellate court disagreed, saying Amazon was far more integral to the sale of the hoverboard than a typical neighborhood mall would have been. Amazon can be held liable, the court said, even though it never physically possessed or shipped the product. "Amazon provides payment processing for all third-party sales," reads the April 26 ruling. "It remits the purchase price of the third party seller on a set schedule minus any service fees it may charge. Amazon collects a 'referral fee,' a percentage of the sale price per item sold by the third-party seller, depending on the nature of the item sold." That, experts say, could impact e-commerce vendors far beyond the scope of Amazon alone, particularly those who make products available for sale on their platforms but never physically ship or handle the merchandise. "This holding will have sweeping implications for other online marketplaces," Bair wrote. "Most marketplaces do not offer a program similar to (Fulfilled by Amazon) and so could have argued Bolger was inapplicable to them because they never had possession of the product. It may or may not have worked, but Loomis eliminates that option entirely." Robinson said that means companies including eBay and Etsy could face new liability exposure based on the Loomis decision. "These cases do have ramifications across the industry," he said. Here's the most recent ruling on the Loomis case: In November 2015, Kisha Loomis signed on to Amazon and ordered her son a hoverboard, a two-wheeled vehicle popular with kids and balanced with gyroscopic gears. Just more than four weeks later, on New Year's Eve, its lithium ion battery exploded and the hoverboard burst into flames, setting Loomis' bed on fire. Loomis, who lives near Sacramento, suffered burns fighting the blaze and sued, accusing Amazon of selling her a faulty and dangerous product. Amazon countered that the hoverboard was sold on its platform by a third-party company based in China and the Seattle retail giant therefore shouldn't be held… Read MoreAmazon, Hoverboard  | ||||||||||||
| Melinda Gates reportedly consulted with divorce lawyers since 2019 Posted: 09 May 2021 11:39 AM PDT  The news: Melinda Gates has been working with divorce lawyers since 2019, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. Bill and Melinda Gates last week announced a decision to end their marriage after 27 years. The details: It's still unclear what caused the split, but WSJ and The Daily Beast reported on how Melinda Gates was concerned with her husband's connection to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Daily Beast reported last week that Melinda Gates, a prominent supporter of women and girls' rights, was "furious" after she and Bill met with Epstein in 2013. When details emerged of the reported connections between Bill Gates and Epstein, a Gates representative previously said in 2019 that "any account of a business partnership or personal relationship" between Gates and Epstein "is simply not true." Other tidbits: The Gateses worked out their divorce throughout the pandemic, WSJ noted. Melinda Gates' lawyers include Robert Stephan Cohen, who has represented Michael Bloomberg, Ivana Trump, and others. Bill Gates' lawyers include Ronald Olson, who has repped Mark Zuckerberg and co-founded his firm with billionaire Charlie Munger, the vice chairman at Berkshire Hathaway and buddy of Berkshire chairman Warren Buffett — one of Bill Gates' closest friends. The news: Melinda Gates has been working with divorce lawyers since 2019, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. Bill and Melinda Gates last week announced a decision to end their marriage after 27 years. The details: It's still unclear what caused the split, but WSJ and The Daily Beast reported on how Melinda Gates was concerned with her husband's connection to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Daily Beast reported last week that Melinda Gates, a prominent supporter of women and girls' rights, was "furious" after she and Bill met with Epstein in 2013. When details emerged… Read MoreTech  | ||||||||||||
| Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of May 2, 2021 Posted: 09 May 2021 08:39 AM PDT  Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of May 2, 2021. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on GeekWireBill and Melinda Gates announce decision to end marriage after 27 yearsBill and Melinda Gates announced Monday that they are ending their marriage after 27 years, sending shockwaves through their hometown and around the world where their philanthropic work has touched tens of millions. … Read More Former Amazon exec Jeff Wilke on why he left, what it was like to work for Jeff Bezos, and moreIn March, Jeff Wilke quietly stepped away from Amazon, the company he was instrumental in building from an online book retailer to one of the most valuable and influential corporations in the world. … Read More The Gates split: While the money is outrageous, here's why the divorce likely won't beJust before he was about to begin teaching his online family law class at the University of Washington on Monday, professor Terry Price received an emphatic text from one of his former law students. … Read More Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's family donates $15M to Seattle Children's HospitalMicrosoft CEO Satya Nadella's family is donating $15 million to Seattle Children's Hospital to support its work in neurosciences medicine and mental health care. … Read More Ex-Amazon exec Jeff Blackburn leaves venture capital post after 5 weeks on jobWhen Jeff Blackburn announced his retirement from Amazon in February after 22 years, the longtime Jeff Bezos lieutenant stressed that he was not retiring and hinted at news to come on his next move. … Read More John Oliver takes on COVID vaccine myths, and no, again, Bill Gates did not inject you with a microchipIf you're hesitant about getting a COVID-19 vaccination because you're worried that Bill Gates is going to plant a microchip in it and track you for some reason, John Oliver had a message for you Sunday night. … Read More Gates Foundation reverses position on COVID vaccine patent protections after mounting pressureThe Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced Thursday that it supports the lifting of patent protections on coronavirus vaccine technologies. … Read More Divorce fallout: What happens to Gates Foundation when Bill and Melinda are no longer married?Created more than 20 years ago, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been a global leader in philanthropy. … Read More Jeff Bezos sells more than $2.4B in Amazon stockAmazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos sold off more than $2.4 billion in Amazon shares this week, new regulatory filings show. … Read More Tech jobs hold steady in Seattle and other big tech hubs, but there's another disturbing trend lineThe great migration of tech talent out of large tech hubs like Seattle, San Francisco and Boston may be overblown. … Read More See the technology stories that people were reading on GeekWire for the week of May 2, 2021.… Read MoreGeekWire Weekly  | ||||||||||||
| Importance of Paid Social Media Posted: 09 May 2021 07:40 AM PDT  With smartphones and laptops becoming an everyday essential, anything that is available or can be viewed and purchased through your mobile becomes an instant hit. Also, social media is the new habituate to today's populate. Want to reach people? Put it on social media, because that is where you can find a lot of audiences. Importance of Paid Social MediaThis exponential increase in social media usage led to using this platform for marketing. As time flew, this marketing platform became more reliable. Say you post a picture of your product on social media. Someone from your friend's circle views it. They happen to like it, so they do either of the following: Share it with their friends Ask yourself some questions to get to the best point of your social media output.Who is your target audience? To understand the question — we need to understand the traffic and age groups visiting the various social media. Analyzing the touchpoints based on source, local, and age group will help get this data. Your touchpoint questions are where paid social media will help you. Paid social media is the answer to the above key insights. So, how will this paid social media work for you? First, let's explore what exactly is paid social media?Social Media is not that different from other forms of advertising. You pay to various social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., to display your ads to their consumer's profiles. The biggest advantage of paid social media is that those companies have relevant data about their users, and your ads will be displayed to users who need your product/service. Identify and filter out people who are most likely to convert.It is different to pitch to a crowd to identify your product, but it is a whole another thing to make potential consumers aware of your product and make them your consumers. The latter is exactly what paid social media does to your business! Are you guys still wondering why you should embrace paid social media marketing? The listicle below will help us gain depth about paid social media marketing and how it is the most profitable route, Flexible Budget Flexible BudgetYou can plan your budget. You can promote your brand on social media with a minimal budget. You will be charged on the type of ad, length of your ad, and the placement of your ad in the potential customers' media feed. There are many schemes from which you can opt for the one that best suits your budget. The coverage of the scheme varies based on your budget. Apart from that, there's PPC which is pay per click which means you have to pay a certain amount to the social media company for every click your ad gets via their media. This means you can pay after seeing the results you desire on your webpage. Such options help you carefully plan all the aspects of your advertisement, like length, content, and placement. You'll look at the prospective clicks you want to make planned profits with planned costs and make the most of your ad. Research and analyze the plan that best suits your needs and invest appropriately. Fortunately, the best part about social media marketing is that it can be done both at an exorbitant price and at a low-cost budget. Look for: 10 Low-Cost Social Media Marketing Tactics That Work Help Analyze TouchpointsYou will be able to plan a more concentric campaign if you get to know the touchpoints. Touchpoints are the possible ways to interact with your consumers (not physically or directly), which influences them to feel a certain way about your product. Categorizing the points based on age, source, campaign medium, and the monthly trend will help customize your marketing plans. Upon delving deep, you should choose the appropriate customers who really need your product/service and try to market your product in a meaningful way to establish a bond with them. Touchpoints are basically like the race you need to run to make your potential customers become your actual and regular customers. What are TouchpointsTouchpoints involve a lot of demographic detailing and planning, which is a pretty huge and essential task you need to undertake when you're organically marketing your brand. Who knows people better than the media, where most people spend most times of their lives? Yup, you guessed it right, it's social media companies. In the case of paid social media, the touchpoints covered under social media are taken care of by those companies for your brand. Optimize ContentBy analyzing the touchpoints, you can optimize the content based on your target audience's preferences. Content construction and framing is a crucial step in marketing. You have to carefully frame and spread your ads to decide how your touchpoint connects with or perceives your brand. MarketingNo amount of ads or paid marketing or quality products can save your brand if your marketing content does not convey much. You get to see, analyze and, to an extent, control the success of your ads based on deciding its content wisely. As an initial wave, consider using your most successful ad, which had high reach and conversions organically into paid social media marketing. You're basically going to project your most successful campaign to a larger group of potential customers. The larger amount of potential customers might help you kick start your product on a wider platform and kind of assures most profits because the content you've chosen has worked the best already. StrategiesIn the long run, you may have to apply different strategies to pin down the content, leading to most conversions. Other famous tricks of the trade are to A/B test your best campaigns in specific sample groups to choose the campaign with the most potential. Easy Funneling PotentialsPaid social media will help find target audiences easily. This will help you plan your marketing strategies. By understanding what type of marketing works for your product, you can help increase the magnetizing rate. This will also help divert more traffic to your web pages. Enhance Brand AwarenessCustomizing the content will ultimately enhance the user experience, thereby help your product reach its audience better. Gain Awareness of Current MarketBy constantly analyzing your audience's interaction with your page, you can learn which product stands out in which locale. You can also thereby gain awareness about the current marketing working for that locale. Image Credit: from the author; thank you! The post Importance of Paid Social Media appeared first on ReadWrite. With smartphones and laptops becoming an everyday essential, anything that is available or can be viewed and purchased through your mobile becomes an instant hit. Also, social media is the new habituate to today's populate. Want to reach people? Put it on social media, because that is where you can find a lot of audiences.  | ||||||||||||
| These ingenious iPhone wallpapers ensure your battery never dies Posted: 09 May 2021 07:40 AM PDT  The image above shows three iPhone 12 units, each featuring three different wallpapers. But upon closer inspection, you'd realize it's the same iPhone 12 device rocking a type of wallpaper that's not exactly available on iPhone. The image rotates depending on a specific action, in this case, your worst smartphone fear. They match the iPhone's battery life. It's a brilliant contraption that anyone can set up on their iPhones without jailbreaking the handset. It's all possible thanks to a different iPhone functionality that's already built into iOS. Today’s Top DealAmazon shoppers are obsessed with these Wi-Fi smart plugs – get them for just $3.57 each!Price: $14.27
It's 2021, but smartphone battery life is still a concern. We still wonder how big the phone battery is, and we want to know how long it'll last even before we order the device. That's despite the various technologies that should make battery life concerns a thing of the past. Some phones deliver better battery than others but pick any of the newest handsets, and you're likely to get excellent battery life. Last year's iPhones and Androids also qualify. Smartphone components are more efficient than ever, and battery capacities have steadily increased in recent years. On top of that, all new smartphones support significantly faster charging speeds, and many of them come with wireless charging support. This makes it even more convenient to recharge the handset during the day. Still, if dropping battery life freaks you out, then Ben Vessey's smart iPhone wallpaper trick might help. As you've probably guessed by now, the wallpaper rotates depending on the battery state. You get to choose a different home and lock screen for healthy battery, low battery, and charging mode. That way, a quick glance at the screen will tell you all you need to know about it. iPhone 12 wallpaper changes depending on the battery charge. Image source: Ben Vessey iOS doesn't offer this kind of iPhone dynamic wallpaper functionality, however. So Vessey took one of the great iOS features that could pull it off, the Shortcuts automation app built into iOS. The Dynamo wallpapers that Vessey devised aren't an iOS app, so you won't find them in the App Store. You'll have to purchase the two packs, each containing three sets of dynamic Wallpaper, directly from Vessey's website. Each pack costs around $5.50 and comes with a video and PDF instructions to make it all work. There might be no jailbreaking involved, but you will need to set up shortcuts to change those wallpapers depending on battery life. If you're already well-versed in setting up automation on iPhone, then you might already know how to set up such shortcuts. You could use any images as battery life indicators, as long as they're descriptive enough for the battery states shown above. You'll need an iPhone 6s or later to make it all work on your own or with Vessey's dynamic iPhone wallpapers, which are available at this link. Today’s Top DealAmazon has real diamond stud earrings for under $60 — and the reviews are off the charts!Price: $59.90 It's 2021, but smartphone battery life is still a concern. We still wonder how big the phone battery is, and we want to know how long it'll last even before we order the device. That's despite the various technologies that should make battery life concerns a thing of the past. Some phones deliver better battery than others but pick any of the newest handsets, and you're likely to get excellent battery life. Last year's iPhones and Androids also qualify. Smartphone components are more efficient than ever, and battery capacities have steadily increased in recent years. On top of that, all new smartphones support significantly faster charging speeds, and many of them come with wireless charging support. This makes it even more convenient to recharge the handset during the day. Still, if dropping battery life freaks you out, then Ben Vessey's smart iPhone wallpaper trick might help. As you've probably guessed by now, the wallpaper rotates depending on the battery state. You get to choose a different home and lock screen for healthy battery, low battery, and charging mode. That way, a quick glance at the screen will tell you all you need to know about it. iOS doesn't offer this kind of iPhone dynamic wallpaper functionality, however. So Vessey took one of the great iOS features that could pull it off, the Shortcuts automation app built into iOS. The Dynamo wallpapers that Vessey devised aren't an iOS app, so you won't find them in the App Store. You'll have to purchase the two packs, each containing three sets of dynamic Wallpaper, directly from Vessey's website. Each pack costs around $5.50 and comes with a video and PDF instructions to make it all work. There might be no jailbreaking involved, but you will need to set up shortcuts to change those wallpapers depending on battery life. If you're already well-versed in setting up automation on iPhone, then you might already know how to set up such shortcuts. You could use any images as battery life indicators, as long as they're descriptive enough for the battery states shown above. You'll need an iPhone 6s or later to make it all work on your own or with Vessey's dynamic iPhone wallpapers, which are available at this link.iOS, iPhone  |
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