Can anyone save what's left of privacy? -- May 9, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

First came the email saying my credit card may have been compromised “at an undisclosed merchant,” and the bank was sending a replacement card.

Wait, what happened? And what’s an undisclosed merchant, anyway? When I called to find out, the customer representative said the bank doesn’t share that information.

The bank says it gets information from various outside sources – such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express and law enforcement agencies – and details about a specific breach are not disclosed, even to the bank.

That’s good, I guess, but it leaves customers in the dark.

My new card arrived promptly, and I started updating accounts where my credit card is on file for payments. That’s a downside of convenience and reward points.

We’ve all been there. No matter how hard we try to preserve a semblance of control over our personal data, we constantly lag enterprising crooks.

What we don’t willingly share on social media, companies “harvest” for their own business purposes. That word, harvest, grates on me, but, like it or not, our personal information is a commodity.

In our hyper-connected age, privacy is melting faster than glaciers on our warming planet.

Now, Congress -- after years of railing about the loss of privacy -- is holding hearings on the issue and fussing at corporate leaders. But lawmakers are divided on how to write a federal privacy law to replace our confusing patchwork of state and federal laws.  

The Federal Trade Commission is cracking down somewhat on Facebook and other mega companies that shirk their responsibilities.

Even social media and tech giants claim they’re on our side and promise – again – to do more to protect our privacy.

“The future is private,” Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg declared April 30, insisting he was serious.  

Facebook is negotiating with the Federal Trade Commission a fine up to $5 billion  in a settlement for failing to abide by a 2011 consent decree to protect users’ privacy.

Facebook shared the personal information of about 87 million users -- without their knowledge or consent – with Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm that has since gone out of business. 

The fine, expected any day, would be the largest in American history, and may require the company to take such steps as appointing a top level privacy official and a privacy oversight committee.

It’s just a slap on the wrist, critics say.

Two senators, Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republican Josh Hawley of Missouri, say the enormous fine is a “bargain for Facebook.” They suggest the FTC hold Zuckerberg and other corporate leaders personally responsible.

Facebook is redesigning and updating its services to encourage private messages, communication within groups and Story. Stories disappear 24 hours after they’re posted.

Other companies now use privacy as a selling point, following Apple’s lead.

“We believe privacy is a fundamental human right,” Apple’s website says.

But it doesn’t come cheap. Apple’s budget iPhone XR starts at $749.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times Tuesday: “Privacy cannot be a luxury good offered only to people who can afford to buy premium products and services.”

Google unveiled a $399 smartphone and promised tools to help customers control their data, such as expanding incognito mode, which allows users to search without being identified, to maps and other apps. 

Our smart products already record and send back our conversations and activities – often to train artificial intelligence, but still. Amazon workers and contractors reportedly listen to consumers’ conversations with Alexa. That’s creepy.

And, Amazon’s Key will deliver your online purchases inside your home, car or garage.

All Prime members need do is allow access to their property. A promotional video shows happy people opening their car trunk, garage and front door and finding packages safe and sound. What could go wrong?

In this fast-changing world, we can’t expect the government to save our privacy. And we can’t trust the big tech companies to have our privacy at heart.

We each must decide how much we want smart machines to do for us and how much privacy we’re willing to give up for the convenience.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Why `Made in America' isn't clockwork -- Jan. 21, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

A lot is being made of being made in America.  

Republican presidential contender Donald J. Trump plays Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” at his rallies, needling rival Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada to an American mother and Cuban father.

Not to be outdone, Cruz, at the last GOP candidates’ debate, countered that some extreme birthers claim that for a person to be a natural-born citizen, both parents must also be native born. Trump’s mother was born in Scotland, so he would be disqualified.

“But I was born here,” Trump protested.

That’s politics, but anyone who’s tried to buy products made in America knows the frustration of the hunt.

Trump feels our pain.

“We want to buy USA, right?” the billionaire  businessman said Monday at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. Trump vowed that, as president, he’ll bring big-name manufacturing back to the United States.

“We’re gonna get Apple to start building their damn computers in this country, instead of in other countries,” he said.

Really? Trump doesn’t say how he will bring Apple back or whether he’s concerned that the cost of the iPhone and other gadgets could skyrocket if made here.  

Five years ago, Barack Obama asked Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs why Apple couldn’t build the iPhone here, to which Jobs replied, according to a New York Times report, “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”

Current Apple CEO Tim Cook, asked by NBC Nightly News in 2011 why Apple couldn’t be a Made in America company, said that while many Apple components are made here, America has lost the skills associated with manufacturing.

We forget that in the early 2000s almost all Apple products were American-made. In today’s increasingly global economy, they’re designed in the USA but most are made in China.

Being Made in USA is not a random act of patriotism; it’s a hard-nosed business decision. Companies know we want to buy American, and they encourage our goodwill by plastering their ads with American flags, maps and slogans.

The question arises: How much of a product must actually be American-made to carry the Made in America label?

The Federal Trade Commission, which protects the Made in America name, says that if a company claims a product is Made in USA, “all or virtually all” its parts or components need to be made here.

“The product should contain no – or negligible – foreign content,” the FTC says.

But what’s virtually all and what’s negligible? The FTC hasn’t set specific percentages.

Final assembly or processing must take place in the United States, then other factors come into play, including total manufacturing costs and how significant foreign content is to the final product, FTC says.

It’s not, in other words, clockwork.

In Detroit Wednesday, Obama, wearing his own Shinola watch, toured the Shinola plant, which touts its luxury watches as “Built in Detroit.” The company says its watches and bicycles are “100 percent assembled” in Detroit but, the Detroit Free Press reported, about one-third of its watch movements come from Thailand.

“Shinola’s goal is to build products that are predominantly American manufactured,” Shinola says on its website, which details country sources of various parts.  

The FTC has put watchmakers, among other manufacturers, on notice about Made in America claims. After an inquiry from the FTC, Niall Luxury in Kansas City agreed in November to revise marketing materials to reflect the use of Swiss movements.

If the standards aren’t confusing enough for manufacturers and consumers, California sets its own Made in America standard, previously requiring 100 percent domestic content.

Under a loosened state law, as of Jan. 1, Made in USA in California means foreign components are no more than 5 percent of final wholesale value or 10 percent if the manufacturer can show the components cannot be obtained or produced domestically.

Some in Congress are moving to lessen confusion. The Senate Commerce Committee passed a bill in November that makes the federal government – through the FTC -- solely responsible for developing and enforcing standards.

The measure will allow products to carry the Made in USA label “even if a small piece, such as a screw or shoe lace, is sourced from a foreign country,” said Sen. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, a sponsor of the bill.

The idea is to encourage companies to stay here. We all want to see more jobs made in America.

©2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Business suits up for culture wars -- April 2, 2015 column

By MARSHA MERCER

For decades, social conservatives have blamed liberals, “the media” and Hollywood for promoting same-sex marriage and gay rights. Now they can add big business to the list.

The culture wars are back – they never went far -- and corporations are emerging as a powerful new player on behalf of  lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

“America’s business leaders recognized a long time ago that discrimination, in all its forms, is bad for business,” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote Tuesday in an op-ed in The Washington Post.

Cook, who came out as gay last year, was among the chiefs of national and international companies as well as celebrities who criticized Indiana and its Republican governor, Mike Pence, for enacting a religious freedom law that critics saw as encouraging discrimination against the LGBT community.

Nothing focuses the mind of a state official like the threat of boycotts or trouble for local businesses, so Pence reacted when other states banned their employees from traveling to Indiana and companies and organizations threatened to cancel conventions. Angie’s List, a nationwide business-rating service, put on hold its plans for a $40 million expansion in Indianapolis.

Pence backed off the law he had previously signed, saying it needed a clarification or fix after all.

“Was I expecting this kind of backlash?” Pence said. “Heavens, no.”

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, both Democrats, quickly put out the welcome mat to businesses turned off by Indiana’s law. Virginia has a version of the religious freedom law but McAuliffe signed an executive order in 2014 with protections that Indiana lacks. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion and sexual orientation.

McAuliffe invited Indiana businesses “to take advantage of Virginia’s open, inclusive and thriving business environment.”

When the Arkansas legislature passed a law similar to Indiana’s, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart joined other companies in asking Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, to veto the measure.  

The bill “threatens to undermine the spirit of inclusion present throughout the state of Arkansas and does not reflect the values we proudly uphold,” Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon tweeted.

Hutchinson refused to sign the bill he had supported, saying it too needed work. His son Seth had signed a petition asking him to veto it, Hutchinson said, noting generational differences in opinion.

About 80 percent of people 18 to 29 think gay marriage should be valid, a Gallup poll found last year. Support declines with age, and among people 65 and older, only 42 percent support gay marriage.

Three weeks before Pence signed Indiana’s religious freedom law, 379 employers filed a friend of the court brief March 5 in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting same-sex marriage.

The firms range from cupcake bakers and plumbers to Fortune 100 companies. Some are names that the youngest Americans grew up with: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Starbucks and Twitter.

Others are traditional economic stalwarts: Aetna, Alcoa, Colgate-Palmolive, Dow Chemical, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Marriott, Pfizer, Proctor & Gamble, United Air Lines, Verizon Communications, Wells Fargo and Xerox. And from the world of sports, the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Rays.

The companies asked the court to affirm the rights of gay people to marry in all 50 states, but the brief did not cite social or civil rights reasons. Their legal argument was all about business and the burden the “fractured legal landscape” places on employers.

Currently, 13 states ban same-sex marriage and it is legal in 36 states and the District of Columbia. The legality of same-sex marriage is unclear in Alabama, where state and federal courts have issued conflicting orders.

Having such a patchwork of state laws “creates legal uncertainty and imposes unnecessary costs and administrative complexities on employers,” the brief said. Employers are forced to treat workers in similar circumstances differently simply because they live in different states. 

The court has scheduled oral arguments April 28 in Obergefell v. Hodges, which consolidates four same-sex marriage cases. A ruling is expected this summer.

“Allowing same-sex couples to marry improves employee morale and productivity, reduces uncertainty, and removes the wasteful administrative burdens,” the brief argues.

Everyone has a right to his or her religious beliefs, but business clearly believes the economic case for equal rights has been made. In today’s culture wars, social conservatives ignore that fact at their political peril.

© 2015 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.