Author Archives: Scalper1

Apple E-Book Price-Fixing Judgment To Stick; Supreme Court Bows Out

Apple ‘s ( AAPL ) hope of clearing its name in the e-book pricing-fixing antitrust case was dashed Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear its appeal. The high court’s action means Apple must pay $450 million to e-book purchasers as part of the company’s July 2014 agreement to settle damages in the antitrust case brought by the attorneys general of 33 states and territories. E-book buyers will be reimbursed for the higher prices Apple’s conduct caused them to pay through automatic credits at their e-book retailers. They will be able to apply the credits to future purchases, the Justice Department said in a press release . With the $166 million previously paid by the five conspiring publishers to settle claims against them, Apple’s payment will bring to $566 million the amount repaid to e-book purchasers overcharged as a result of Apple’s and the publishers’ illegal conspiracy. “Apple’s liability for knowingly conspiring with book publishers to raise the prices of e-books is settled once and for all,” Bill Baer, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, said in a statement. “And consumers will be made whole.” The Justice Department filed its civil antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five e-book publishers on April 11, 2012. The department reached settlements before trial with the publishers: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Holtzbrinck Publishers, Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster. The Justice Department proceeded to trial against Apple before U.S. District Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York on June 3, 2013. Judge Cote ruled the next month that Apple was liable for orchestrating a price-fixing conspiracy with the publishers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed Judge Cote’s decision on June 30, 2015. Apple negotiated a pricing scheme with publishers ahead of the launch of the iPad tablet and Apple’s e-book store. The companies were attempting to break the monopoly in e-books held by Amazon.com ( AMZN ) through its Kindle e-reader business. Publishers were upset that Amazon was offering e-books of best-sellers for $9.99. The collusion among Apple and the publishers caused the price of e-books to increase 30% to 50% to $12.99 or $14.99 from Amazon’s $9.99 price, the plaintiffs argued. “Apple was caught red-handed orchestrating this scheme to inflate the prices of e-books, and we believe this case is a true testament to the tangible benefits the law can bring consumers,” Steve Berman, an attorney with Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, said in a statement Monday . The law firm represented a legal class of e-book purchasers and litigated the case with federal and state government lawyers. Image provided by Shutterstock .

Apple Customers Hacked In First Known Mac Ransomware Blitz

Hackers targeted Apple ( AAPL ) Macintosh users over the weekend in what No. 2 cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks ( PANW ) believes was the first successful ransomware scheme on the OS X platform. Ransomware attacks have targeted Microsoft ( MSFT ) Windows computers, encrypting data on infected machines and then demanding a ransom from users for the digital key to the locked files. Palo Alto dubbed the Apple ransomware “KeRanger.” KeRanger was burrowed into two installers of Transmission 2.90, an open-source BitTorrent software used to transmit peer-to-peer data, according to a Palo Alto Networks blog post Sunday. Because KeRanger was signed with a valid Mac application development certificate, it was able to bypass Apple’s Gatekeeper systems, Palo Alto said. KeRanger sleeps for three days before locking files, which means infections will likely become evident Monday. “After completing the encryption process, KeRanger demands that victims pay one bitcoin (about $400) to a specific address to retrieve their files,” according to the post. KeRanger also infected Time Machine backup files to prevent victims from recovering previously protected data. Palo Alto Networks says it alerted Apple and Transmission on Friday and has since updated its URL-filtering and threat-prevention processes to block KeRanger installs. Transmission has since removed the malicious installers from its website and released version 2.92. Apple revoked the abused certificate and updated its XProtect antivirus signature, Palo Alto Networks said. Apple confirmed in an email to IBD that it has pulled the developer certificate and updated XProject so that no one can install the infected app. Transmission representatives told Forbes that about 6,500 machines were infected. Transmission removed the infected version about 32 hours after Palo Alto notified the site of the breach, Ryan Olson, head of Palo Alto Networks’ threat intelligence unit, told IBD. According to Palo Alto Networks, the only previous ransomware developed to hit Macs was discovered in 2014. Then, security firm Kaspersky Lab found an incomplete hack named FileCoder. “We believe KeRanger is the first fully functional ransomware seen on the OS X platform,” Palo Alto said. Ransomware attacks are booming as cybercrooks shift from bank information theft — a model fraught with risk — to easier and less traceable scams, Olson said. And the attacks are indiscriminate, targeting grandma and her home computer as often as businesses with operations-critical files. “It’s a broad spectrum,” he said. “They’re going to monetize every infection they can using this technique.” Apple stock fell 1.1% on the stock market today , while Palo Alto Networks stock rose 2.3%.

ComScore Stock Plunges; Stock Buyback Shelved; Analyst Day Delayed

ComScore ’s ( SCOR ) stock plunged more than 30% to a nearly two-year low after the Internet and TV audience measurement company further delayed the filing of its annual report, suspended share buybacks and postponed an investor day. Shares of rival Nielsen ( NLSN ) were up a fraction in early afternoon trading in the stock market today , and the shares are up 11% in a shaky 2016. ComScore’s completed its acquisition of Rentrak on Feb. 1. The two companies announced their merger on Sept. 29, aiming to take on industry leader Nielsen. ComScore and Nielsen are in IBD’s Commercial Services — Market Research group, which ranks a lowly No. 142 out of 197 industry groups tracked. Among tech research firms in that group, Gartner ( IT ) has an IBD Composite Rating of 77. Nielsen has an 88 CR, and ComScore has a 52. ComScore, whose stock has been in a downtrend since August, said directors had suspended a $125 million stock repurchase program until an internal review of accounting matters is completed. In an SEC filing Monday, it also said it was delaying its annual report and 10-K filing for 2015 until its audit committee can complete an accounting review that began last month. ComScore said the committee indicated it can’t complete that review before March 15. ComScore’s investor day had been slated for March 16. “Investors are focused on a number of questions that have led to shares underperforming (integration of Rentrak, growth of the core business), and we believe the latest accounting announcement could further amplify this focus,” said Jefferies in a research note.