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Landlords could no longer rely on rent-pricing software to quietly track each others moves and push rents higher using confidential data, under a settlement between RealPage Inc. and federal prosecutors to end what critics said was illegal algorithmic collusion. The deal announced Monday by the Department of Justice follows a yearlong federal antitrust lawsuit, launched during the Biden administration, against the Texas-based software company. RealPage would not have to pay any damages or admit any wrongdoing. The settlement must still be approved by a judge. RealPage software provides daily recommendations to help landlords and their employees nationwide price their available apartments. The landlords do not have to follow the suggestions, but critics argue that because the software has access to a vast trove of confidential data, it helps RealPages clients charge the highest possible rent. RealPage was replacing competition with coordination, and renters paid the price, said DOJ antitrust chief Gail Slater, who emphasized that the settlement avoided a costly, time-consuming trial. Under the terms of the proposed settlement, RealPage can no longer use that real-time data to determine price recommendations. Instead, the only nonpublic data that can be used to train the softwares algorithm must be at least one year old. What does this mean for you and your family?” Slater said in a video statement. “It means more real competition in local housing markets. It means rents set by the market, not by a secret algorithm.” RealPage attorney Stephen Weissman said the company is pleased the DOJ worked with them to settle the matter. There has been a great deal of misinformation about how RealPages software works and the value it provides for both housing providers and renters,” Weissman said in a statement. “We believe that RealPages historical use of aggregated and anonymized nonpublic data, which include rents that are typically lower than advertised rents, has led to lower rents, less vacancies, and more procompetitive effects. However, the deal was slammed by some observers as a missed opportunity to clamp down on alleged algorithmic price-fixing throughout the economy. This case really was the tip of the spear,” said Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project, whose group advocates for government action against business concentration. He said the settlement is rife with loopholes and he believes RealPages can keep influencing the rental market even if they can only use public, rather than private, data. He also decried how RealPages does not have to pay any damages, unlike many companies that have paid millions in penalties over their use of the software. Over the past few months, more than two dozen property management companies have reached various settlements over their use of RealPage, including Greystar, the nation’s largest landlord, which agreed to pay $50 million to settle a class action lawsuit, and $7 million to settle a separate lawsuit filed by nine states. The governors of California and New York signed laws last month to crack down on rent-setting software, and a growing list of cities, including Philadelphia and Seattle, have passed ordinances against the practice. Ten states California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington had joined the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit. Those states were not part of Mondays settlement, meaning they can continue to pursue the case in court. R.J. Rico, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
At Fleece & Harmony, a woolen mill and yarn shop in bucolic Belfast, Prince Edward Island, in Canada, owner Kim Doherty used to be able to send yarn skeins to U.S. customers across the border with little fanfare.The yarn orders usually met an import tax exemption for packages valued at under $800, meaning it could be imported tariff-free and avoid the customs process.But ever since the Trump administration eliminated the exemption as of Aug. 29, the cost to send yarn to U.S. customers has skyrocketed. The bill for a $21 ball of yarn now includes $12 to $15 in brokerage fees that her shipper UPS charges, plus state taxes and a 6.5% tariff, all of which almost doubles her costs.“We had orders that have reached the customers and they’re in shock about the fact that they have to pay,” she said. “And it’s amazing how many people really didn’t know what the impact was going to be.”Getting rid of the so-called de minimis exemption was meant to curb drug trafficking and stop low-quality goods from discount sellers like Temu and Shein flooding the U.S. market.But as the all-important annual holiday shopping season kicks off, it is putting a crimp on small businesses and shoppers now facing higher costs.Chad Lundquist in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, ordered fragrance oil from a site called Oil Perfumery in October, but he didn’t realize the business was based in Toronto, Canada. His total was $35.75, which included an $8 standard shipping fee. But when his package arrived, he was hit with a $10.80 tariff bill from FedEx.“It wasn’t worth the $10 tariff for a $27 purchase,” Lundquist said. Oil Perfumery did not respond to a request for comment.He’s not the only skittish shopper. Three months after the exemption ended, sellers abroad are reporting drastic declines in U.S. sales. Some are paying the duties themselves instead of passing them to consumers. They are also trying to focus on domestic customers to replace U.S. ones and adjusting product lineups to feature best selling items to try to goose sales.Martha Keith, founder of British stationery brand Martha Brook, which is based in London with a small office in Melbourne, Australia, said U.S. sales from her Etsy store her main e-commerce channel in addition to her own website were up 50% for the year before the exemption ended. But sales fell dramatically when the tariffs hit, and continue to drop even though she’s paying the import taxes and customs fees herself so customers aren’t impacted. Sales are down about 30% year-over-year.“The issue seems to be in customer confidence hitting the desire to order from businesses outside of the U.S., because of confusion about how the tariffs will affect them,” Keith said.She’s also in a bind because she sold a 109 ($144) stationery advent calendar to about 200 U.S. customers ahead of the tariffs, and now she has to ship them. Shipping and tariffs will cost a combined 25 ($33), meaning Keith will have to find an additional 5,000 ($6,583) to cover shipping the advent calendars already sold.“The whole thing has been a bit of a nightmare for businesses like ours, and such a huge shame, as the U.S. market was such a valuable growth area for us, particularly through Etsy,” she said.The timing was particularly bad for Sue Bacarro, who along with her sister co-owns Digi Wildflowers, an Etsy shop that sells embroidered baby blankets, gifts and custom quilts for wedding and anniversaries, located across the border from Detroit in Windsor, Ontario.Before the announcement of the removal of the de minimis exemption, they placed a large inventory order to prepare for the holiday season and early 2026 demand. But when the de minimis exemption ended, “inventory wasn’t moving as expected, and we suspected customers were hesitant to purchase due to potential duty charges,” Bacarro said.Sales 70% of which come from Americans finally started to rebound when Digi Wildflowers prominently added a banner on its site that said, “U.S. Import Duties On Us.”“Heading into this holiday season, we’re keeping that message front and center through banners, social media, and direct communication,” said Bacarro, who is also expanding their product line.But not all businesses can or want to pick up the tariff tab.Kim Doherty, who runs the woolen mill on Prince Edward Island, doesn’t plan to pay the tariff and fees for her customers.“I’m not in a position as a small business owner to do that. The profit margins are already rather thin,” said Doherty, adding that “on principle,” she shouldn’t have to do it.Right now, her shipments to U.S. customers are about 10% of what they were. Instead, she’s working on expanding her fiber offerings to Canadian customers at her brick-and-mortar store and fiber festivals.“We’ll see what happens,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that my U.S. customers were shopping and not even thinking about it, but now they’ll be evaluating the purchases that they’re making, knowing that they are going to have the extra fees on top of whatever they see.”Some Etsy businesses have been stymied by international postal services temporarily halting deliveries to the U.S. because of the confusion around the ending of de minimis.Selene Pierangelini’s business, Apricot Rain Creations, based in Brisbane, Australia, which sells crystals, candles, and spiritual wellness products on Etsy, depended on the Australia Post to get deliveries to U.S. customers. More than three-fourths of her customer base comes from the U.S. Australia Post suspended service to the U.S. for about a month, resuming on Sept. 22.She temporarily switched to FedEx and UPS private shippers that are more expensive than Australia Post. Since it resumed, Australia Post is working with Zonos, a provider of cross-border shipping technology, to offer a shipping calculator that lets her prepay duties and fees. They themselves charge a fee of $1.69 plus 10% of the total duty fee.So far, the items she ships from Australia have been tariffed at a 10% rate, the baseline tariff for the country. She increased her shipping costs to help cover the expense. It is manageable, but tricky, she said.“You don’t really know how much (the cost) is going to be until the package clears custom in the U.S., and you get an invoice which is automatically paid out of your account,” she said.And her sales have not recovered. Before the tariffs, her U.S. sales were about 85% of her total sales, and now they’re around 35%. She’s hopeful people are just holding off until Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday sales.In the meantime, she has restarted sales to Europe, which she had paused in 2024 due to increased regulations. And she’s launched a Facebook marketing campaign and is exploring print-on-demand services from U.S.-based providers for production and fulfillment.“This situation highlights how fragile small businesses can be when dependent on one market,” Pierangelini said. “While it has been a shock, it’s also pushed me to diversify something that will hopefully make my business stronger and more resilient in the long run.” Mae Anderson, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
Most people don’t give the display screens on their commuter trains a second thought, but for designer Emily Sneddon, they’ve proved to be a well of inspiration. Sneddon lived in San Francisco, where she worked at the design agency Collins, from 2021 until this year when she moved back to her home country of Australia. She designed Fran Sans, her first ever font, after noticing the display on San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA) recently retired Muni Metro Breda Light Rail Vehicle. [Photo: Spondylolithesis/Getty Images] Unlike New York City, which handles its public transit through a single agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), public transportation in San Francisco and the Bay Area is split between multiple independent public agencies, like SFMTA, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), and Caltrain, a commuter rail. That means there’s no de facto official font for public transportation in the Bay Area as there is in New York City with Helvetica, the official font of the city’s unified Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). So Sneddon made her own. The font that became Fran Sans started first as a project documenting sans typography around San Francisco. The lettering from the train car display was supposed to be used on a zine coverthen it turned into a full-blown font. Sneddon designed Fran Sans on a 3×5 grid after a monthslong research project that included a visit to SFMTA’s Electronics Shop at Balboa Park, consultation with Gary Wallberg, a senior engineer who designed the display signs in 1999, and a survey of modular typography curated by Letterform Archive, which is based in San Francisco. “For me it wasn’t enough simply to create a 1:1 without digging further to find out more about the original designer that inspired this work,” says Sneddon. “It’s a myth that we’ve all seemed to have subscribed to that everything you’d want to know about is available online. But so many stories are all around us, and they haven’t been documented anywhere. The story of these displays was one of them.” The original lettering on the displays didnt have all the characters, as Muni had no need for Qs, Xs, exclamation points, or semicolons, so Sneddon had to make her own. For now there are no lowercase letters, as that would require a different grid, and she also hasnt managed to come up with a suitable “@” sign yet. Fran Sans comes in three styles: solid, tile, and panel. SFMTA finished replacing the Breda car with a new model this month that uses LED dot-matrix destination displays, which to Sneddon lack the character of the Breda car lettering. Fran Sans reintroduces some of those typographic quirks, like thin diagonals on the Z, 7, and M. Although those particularities can make the M look like an H at small sizes, theyre also what gives the font its charm. Theres a perception that San Francisco is a place where people come to make their bread and leave, Sneddon says, from the gold rush in the 1800s to AI today, but moving to San Francisco taught her that theres a lot of community, a lot of love for the arts, and a lot of generosity in the city.
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E-Commerce
Hooboy, here we go again. Chevrolet has once more rolled out a tearjerker ad for the holidays. Created by ad agency Anomaly, Memory Lane follows an older couple on their annual holiday drive to the family cottage in their well-loved 1987 Suburban. The trip takes them back to holiday memories and moments of years past that helped build their family. We see the kids go from babies and toddlers to bickering back-seat siblings to near-silent teens, all on the way to meeting them again as adults. For just about any parent, this is an absolute field-goal kick to the cryballs. Its a story that is specific to this fictional group, but a sentiment that will touch on similar memories for many viewers. Its also continuing the brands streak of delivering an emotional, well-told family tale for the holidays since 2021. Chevrolet CMO Steve Majoros told Ad Age that the strategy is not the hard sell, but rather to steer into the brands 114-year history. Im sure people are going to say, Oh, its the same formula and the same whatever, Majoros said. You know what? Theyd die to have the brand we have, and they would die to have the kind of connection we have with people, the legitimacy and credibility of our brand. So Im not going to apologize one bit. And why should he? Let other brands that desperately need awareness go full brain rot on TikTok. Here, Chevy is aiming to reinforce a reputation and legacy built over the past century with a creative strategy as solid as the classic cars and trucks featured in these spots. The brands emotional connection lives on through an 87 Suburban, a 78 Silverado truck (2024), 72 Suburban (2023), 57 Chevy Nomad (2022), and 66 Chevy Impala (2021). If I were ranking Chevys top three tearjerker holiday ads, this years would be a close third. In second is 2023s A Time to Remember, which the brand created in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association. It follows a granddaughter’s drive to bring back some memories for her grandmother with a cruise around town. And in first place, last years The Sanctuary. Clocking in at more than five minutes, its a generational tale of fathers and sons that didnt feel overly sappy but definitely got some tough guys choked up. Now, whos cutting the onions?
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E-Commerce
Tucked in a two-sentence footnote in a voluminous court opinion, a federal judge recently called out immigration agents using artificial intelligence to write use-of-force reports, raising concerns that it could lead to inaccuracies and further erode public confidence in how police have handled the immigration crackdown in the Chicago area and ensuing protests.U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis wrote the footnote in a 223-page opinion issued last week, noting that the practice of using ChatGPT to write use-of-force reports undermines the agents’ credibility and “may explain the inaccuracy of these reports.” She described what she saw in at least one body camera video, writing that an agent asks ChatGPT to compile a narrative for a report after giving the program a brief sentence of description and several images.The judge noted factual discrepancies between the official narrative about those law enforcement responses and what body camera footage showed. But experts say the use of AI to write a report that depends on an officer’s specific perspective without using an officer’s actual experience is the worst possible use of the technology and raises serious concerns about accuracy and privacy. An officer’s needed perspective Law enforcement agencies across the country have been grappling with how to create guardrails that allow officers to use the increasingly available AI technology while maintaining accuracy, privacy and professionalism. Experts said the example recounted in the opinion didn’t meet that challenge.“What this guy did is the worst of all worlds. Giving it a single sentence and a few pictures if that’s true, if that’s what happened here that goes against every bit of advice we have out there. It’s a nightmare scenario,” said Ian Adams, assistant criminology professor at the University of South Carolina who serves on a task force on artificial intelligence through the Council for Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank.The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment, and it was unclear if the agency had guidelines or policies on the use of AI by agents. The body camera footage cited in the order has not yet been released.Adams said few departments have put policies in place, but those that have often prohibit the use of predictive AI when writing reports justifying law enforcement decisions, especially use-of-force reports. Courts have established a standard referred to as objective reasonableness when considering whether a use of force was justified, relying heavily on the perspective of the specific officer in that specific scenario.“We need the specific articulated events of that event and the specific thoughts of that specific officer to let us know if this was a justified use of force,” Adams said. “That is the worst case scenario, other than explicitly telling it to make up facts, because you’re begging it to make up facts in this high-stakes situation.” Private information and evidence Besides raising concerns about an AI-generated report inaccurately characterizing what happened, the use of AI also raises potential privacy concerns.Katie Kinsey, chief of staff and tech policy counsel at the Policing Project at NYU School of Law, said if the agent in the order was using a public ChatGPT version, he probably didn’t understand he lost control of the images the moment he uploaded them, allowing them to be part of the public domain and potentially used by bad actors.Kinsey said from a technology standpoint most departments are building the plane as it’s being flown when it comes to AI. She said it’s often a pattern in law enforcement to wait until new technologies are already being used and in some cases mistakes being made to then talk about putting guidelines or policies in place.“You would rather do things the other way around, where you understand the risks and develop guardrails around the risks,” Kinsey said. “Even if they aren’t studying best practices, there’s some lower hanging fruit that could help. We can start from transparency.”Kinsey said while federal law enforcement considers how the technology should be used or not used, it could adopt a policy like those put in place in Utah or California recently, where police reports or communications written using AI have to be labeled. Careful use of new tools The photographs the officer used to generate a narrative also caused accuracy concerns for some experts.Well-known tech companies like Axon have begun offering AI components with their body cameras to assist in writing incident reports. Those AI programs marketed to police operate on a closed system and largely limit themselves to using audio from body cameras to produce narratives because the companies have said programs that attempt to use visuals are not effective enough for use.“There are many different ways to describe a color, or a facial expression or any visual component. You could ask any AI expert and they would tell you prompts return very different results between different AI applications, and that gets complicated with a visual component,” said Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University Law School.“There’s also a professionalism questions. Are we OK with police officers using predictive analytics?” he added. “It’s about what the model thinks should have happened, but might not be what actually happened. You don’t want it to be what ends up in court, to justify your actions.” Claudia Lauer, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
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