pizza

Another e-tailer criticized by federal lawmakers two weeks ago for profiting from "misleading" and "deceptive" marketing practices appears to be rethinking its position.

VistaPrint, an online printing company, announced Monday it has "terminated its contract" with Vertrue, a so-called post-transaction marketing company that has come under scrutiny along with competitors Affinion and Webloyalty. This summer, the U.S. Senate Commerce committee began looking into scores of consumer complaints about the marketers--some going back years.

VistaPrint said in a statement that the company's contract with Vertrue ends December 20.

The three Connecticut-based marketing firms … Read more

Web shoppers are in need of a digital-age Ralph Nader, the kind of firebrand consumer advocate who can focus public scorn on unscrupulous merchants.

Last week, the U.S. Senate Commerce committee revealed that some of the Web's best-known retailers, including Barnes & Noble, Hotwire, Yahoo, Pizza Hut, Travelocity, Fandango, and Victoria's Secret, were part of a dubious marketing operation designed to mislead their own customers.

Serious questions about who's policing e-commerce were raised after the Commerce committee issued a report detailing how three marketing firms, Affinion, Webloyalty, and Vertrue, generated $1.4 billion with the help … Read more

Life has never been better for enterprises and consumers. From free music to free software, the digital economy is an all-you-can-eat free-for-all.

That is, unless you're a vendor.

Traditional vendors are getting shellacked by the digital economy, spurring some, like Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp., to threaten to stick a finger in the dike and demand that users pay for content. (At Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, users already do pay to access some stories online.)

The problem with this approach is that not everyone is willing to follow suit. Why? Well, not everyone needs to. The BBC responded … Read more

It doesn't get much more comfortable than sitting around a warm fire on a cool evening. However bad the elements are outside, the inside is heated with the warming glow emanating from the fireplace. Usually, the fireplace is in the living room, which makes sense; the living room is the central location of the house.

But there's another room that serves as a gathering spot, one that usually features a different type of heated comfort in the form of a stove. Make that stove a wood-burning stove and add a pizza oven in the mix, and suddenly the … Read more

Pizza night is a staple in our house--it's my go-to meal when I really don't have the energy to make something that requires more effort, when I forget to defrost meat the night before, when I don't start thinking about dinner until the kids start asking for it....you get the picture. We eat a fair amount of pizza in this house.

I'm thinking that the Pizza Boss 3000 might be a fun addition to pizza night. It's an ordinary pizza slicer dressed up as a circular saw, but without all the potential lethality of … Read more

There's something quite sad when people fall out over Internet porn.

However, relationships do not appear to be anywhere closer to a consummated hug at Ireland's Green Isle Foods pizza-making plant.

Should you not have been arrested by this pulsating tale, Green Isle Foods dismissed three workers after accusing them of enjoying Internet porn on the job. Thirty-five pizza-producing people went on strike. This was five weeks ago.

Now, according to the Leinster Leader, the workers are trying to seduce the management into some making up and kissing.

The Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union, which represents the workers, … Read more

As AT&T tries to accuse Google of violating Net neutrality, Molly wonders if they really just want to be seen as a villain. Also while you should never call anything unhackable, the Netbooks being given to students in Australia are pretty tight. Physical-layer BIOS protection is unusual in an educational situation like that. And we also get a little frustrated at people who don't listen. So please. Listen. Thanks.

Orange U.K. gets iPhone 3GS, O2 loses exclusivity http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/09/28/orange.uk.to.carry.iphones.in.2009/… Read more

I cannot imagine how much fun it is to work at a pizza-making plant.

Indeed, the mere fact that there exist plants to make pizza seems entirely unedifying to me.

So I cannot help but feel a tinge of sympathy for three workers who were allegedly caught casting a furtive eye upon some material of a pornographic nature while pumping out pizza for the man.

According to the Belfast Telegraph, staff at the Green Isle Foods pizza-making plant in Naas, Ireland, will be calling for more strikers to protest the firing of their three frustrated colleagues.

The Irish Congress of … Read more

People--supermodels, mostly--often stop me in the street and say, "Rick, your tech deals are insanely awesome, but what about food? Surely finding all those bargains makes you hungry?"

Then I say, "Yes, but don't call me 'Shirley,'" and they shake their heads sadly, having realized that bloggers are just as unfunny in person as they are online.

Anyhoo, it being Friday and all, I thought I'd take a tech break and serve up some cheap eats you can score this weekend: