Archive: Recommended reading
Survey Finds Like and Hate For TV, Wireless-Phone Service
The American Customer Satisfaction Index has just released its latest quarterly survey of consumer attitudes, and some telecom firms are not going to be happy about it. The Index, a project of the University of Michigan's National Quality Research Center, uses phone interviews of randomly chosen U.S. consumers to gauge...
By Rob Pegoraro | May 20, 2008; 11:51 AM ET | Comments (10)
Consumers Remain Less Than Thrilled About Computers
The University of Michigan's National Quality Research Center issued its latest American Customer Satisfaction Index findings this morning, and computer manufacturers should not feel flattered by the findings. The ACSI surveys customer happiness with different industries each quarter. This quarter's report [PDF] focuses on, among others, the personal-computer business. (It...
By Rob Pegoraro | August 14, 2007; 10:20 AM ET | Comments (22)
Search-Engine Privacy Scorecard
Just in time for yesterday's column on search engines, the Center for Democracy and Technology--a D.C.-based think tank--released a report (pdf) on the privacy policies of major search engines. Unlike a lot of the paper that streams out of K Street offices, this document is concise and readable, a mere...
By Rob Pegoraro | August 10, 2007; 01:37 PM ET | Comments (7)
Miscellaneous Monday-Morning Updates
Some news about recent topics of this blog: Internet radio royalties: Last week, Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Don Manzullo (R-Ill.) introduced a bill, the Internet Equality Radio Act (PDF text), that would bring commercial Webcasters under the same simple royalty system as satellite radio--they could pay 7.5 percent of...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 30, 2007; 07:09 AM ET | Comments (7)
Sound Advice For Cell Phone Shoppers
Washington Consumer's Checkbook -- the semi-annual, ad-free magazine put out by the Center for the Study of Services, a K Street nonprofit -- takes a look at cellphone services in its just-released spring/summer issue. I'll summarize the piece, but I can't point you directly to it: Checkbook's Web site requires...
By Rob Pegoraro | April 6, 2007; 12:30 PM ET | Comments (12)
A (Much) Closer Look At Windows Vista
If you're curious about how some of the advertised features in Windows Vista work under the hood--or you'd just like to see what kind of reading I do for fun on the job--have a look at the first installment of Ars Technica's three-part Vista review. This lengthy piece goes into...
By Rob Pegoraro | March 23, 2007; 11:24 AM ET | Comments (9)
Steve Jobs To Record Labels: Tear Down This Wall!
I got back from the MPAA conference (I'll have more thoughts on that tomorrow) just in time to read a jaw-dropping essay posted on Apple's Web site. In it, Steve Jobs says that DRM--it stands for "digital rights management" but might better serve as shorthand for "digital rights minimization"--software doesn't...
By Rob Pegoraro | February 6, 2007; 05:10 PM ET | Comments (19)
