- Time out. New FTC rules will generally require Internet retailers to give consumers the option of a full refund for an online purchase that the retailer failed to ship within the time period promised in the retailer’s solicitation for the purchased item. If such solicitation doesn’t specify a time period, the online seller may be required to ship the merchandise within 30 days of purchase to avoid having to secure the consumer’s consent to proceed with the delivery instead of making a refund. Internet retailers have until December 8th of this year to get into compliance.
- Breaking news. In an effort to ensure its users’ news feeds feature more of the stories they actually want to see, Facebook is updating its news feed algorithm to push timely stories to the top. While the number of “likes” and comments a story received always affected where it showed up in users’ news feeds, the new algorithm will also take into account when a story elicited those responses. Facebook’s refreshed news feed formula will also favor stories that concern topics that are currently trending on the social media site.
- Back to school. The NYPD’s top brass has so far taken four classes designed to teach them how to send appropriate tweets from the department’s more than 40 Twitter accounts. The goal: To get every New York City precinct, public housing patrol unit and transit commander tweeting by year’s end as effectively as Boston police did when they used Twitter successfully refute false reports and announce an arrest in connection with the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Until January of this year, New York’s Finest had only a single account, @NYPDnews, which was run by the department’s media relations team.
