Business news in brief

Verizon to pay $7.4 million in FCC case

Verizon Communications Inc. has agreed to pay $7.4 million to end an investigation that found it failed to tell 2 million new customers of their privacy rights, the Federal Communications Commission said.

Verizon didn't inform telephone customers in initial invoices or welcome letters that they can prevent personal information from being used in marketing campaigns, the agency said.

"It is plainly unacceptable for any phone company to use its customers' personal information for thousands of marketing campaigns without even giving them the choice to opt out," Travis LeBlanc, acting chief of the FCC's enforcement bureau, said in a news release.

Verizon inadvertently omitted a required notice before sending landline customers marketing materials for other Verizon services, Ed McFadden, a Washington-based spokesman, said in an email.

"It did not involve a data breach or an unauthorized disclosure of customer information to third parties," McFadden said.

Verizon has agreed to notify customers of their opt-out rights on every bill for the next three years, the FCC said in its news release.

-- The Associated Press

CVS changes name, halts tobacco sales

CVS, the nation's second-largest drugstore chain, will tweak its corporate name and stop the sale of tobacco nearly a month sooner than planned.

CVS Caremark said it will now be known as CVS Health, effective immediately. The signs on its roughly 7,700 drugstores won't change, so the tweak may not register with shoppers.

However, those customers will see a change when they check out. The cigars and cigarettes that used to fill the shelves behind store cash registers have been replaced with nicotine gum and signs urging visitors to kick the tobacco habit.

A store in downtown Indianapolis also stocked free tobacco quit packs where cigarettes were displayed. The red-and-white boxes, nearly the size of a cigarette pack, contain coupons, a card showing how much a smoker can save by quitting and a booklet with Sudoku and other games to distract someone fighting the urge to smoke.

CVS and other drugstores have delved deeper into customer health in recent years, in part to serve the aging baby boom generation and the millions of uninsured people who are expected to gain coverage under the federal health care overhaul. While competitors Walgreen Co. and Rite Aid Corp. still sell tobacco, they've all started offering more health care products and added walk-in clinics to their stores while expanding the care they provide.

-- The Associated Press

Delta's August revenue per seat up 2%

ATLANTA -- Delta Air Lines Inc. said Wednesday that a key revenue figure rose 2 percent in August, slightly below the carrier's record in July and its previous forecast for the whole third quarter. The shares fell in morning trading.

Delta had predicted a month ago that the figure -- revenue for each seat flown one mile -- would rise by between 2 percent and 4 percent for the key July-through-September quarter, but on Wednesday it lowered the outlook to between 2 percent and 3 percent. The statistic typically rises when an airline fills more seats, charges higher average fares, or both.

The airline said the revenue figure would have increased by 3 percent last month but was held down by "events in Russia, the Middle East and Africa," an apparent reference to fighting between Ukraine and rebels backed by Russia, violence in the Middle East, and an Ebola outbreak in Africa.

Delta also slightly increased its forecast for third-quarter fuel expense.

Within minutes of Wednesday's opening bell, Delta shares had fallen by $1.73, or 4.2 percent, to $39.20. They started the day up 49 percent so far in 2014.

-- The Associated Press

Laid-off N.J. casino workers file for aid

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Approximately 300 newly laid-off casino workers were waiting in line when the doors opened Wednesday at the Atlantic City Convention Center for a mass unemployment filing.

The session Wednesday morning comes after a brutal weekend that saw more than 5,000 employees at the closed Showboat and Revel lose their jobs.

Officials from the state Department of Labor and the main casino workers' union, Local 54 of Unite-HERE, are helping displaced workers file for unemployment, and giving them information on signing up for health insurance and other benefits.

By mid-September, Atlantic City, which started the year with 12 casinos, will be down to eight, and almost 8,000 people will be out of work.

Trump Plaza is closing Sept. 16, and the Atlantic Club shut down in January.

-- The Associated Press

Norwegian airline's U.S. flights barred

Norwegian Air Shuttle AS has lost its bid for temporary permission to fly to the U.S. using an Irish-registered subsidiary, a plan that pilots and competitors said would skirt local labor requirements and oversight.

The carrier's request for long-term permission to fly under the arrangement is still being reviewed by the U.S. Transportation Department, the agency said in a decision posted on a government website. It didn't give a timeline for making a final determination.

The interim action comes as Norwegian Air embarks on one of the industry's most ambitious growth plans, rolling out a long-haul operation with 17 Boeing Co. Dreamliners, while expanding its European fleet. While the European Commission expressed "regret" about the decision, U.S. unions and airlines say registering as a carrier in a third country is an unfair way to sidestep labor protections and government oversight.

"The U.S. Department of Transportation took an important stand for fair competition," Lee Moak, president of the Air Line Pilots Association union, said in an e-mailed statement.

-- Bloomberg News

Business on 09/04/2014

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