Black Friday Crowds Thin After Thanksgiving Shopping Rush

(Reuters) - Mall crowds were relatively thin early on Black Friday in a sign of what has become the new normal in U.S. holiday shopping: the mad rush is happening the night of Thanksgiving and more consumers are picking up deals online.

Most major retailers now open their doors Thursday evening and offer extended holiday deals rather than limiting them to one day. The result is a quieter experience on what has traditionally been the busiest, and sometimes most chaotic, shopping day of the year.

"It just looks like any other weekend," said Angela Olivera, a 32-year old housewife shopping for children's clothing at the Westfarms Mall near Hartford, Connecticut. "The kind of crowds we usually see are missing and this is one of the biggest malls here. I think people are just not spending a lot."

The crowds normally reserved for Black Friday morning appeared Thursday night. Over 15,000 people lined up for the opening of the flagship store of Macy's Inc (M.N) in New York on Thursday, Chief Executive Officer Terry Lundgren told CNN. Police responded to a handful of incidents at Wal-Mart Stores (WMT.N) on Thursday, including to break up a fight over a Barbie doll in Los Angeles, CNN said.

Target Corp (TGT.N) CEO Brian Cornell told Reuters he was encouraged by early indicators for a holiday season that "has moved from an event on Black Friday morning to a multi-day event."

"The consumer clearly enjoys shopping on Thanksgiving," Cornell said, noting the retailer was selling 1,800 televisions per minute nationwide between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. last night.

Wal-Mart said Thursday was its second-highest online sales day ever after last year's Cyber Monday, which is the Monday following Thanksgiving when online retailers promote bargains. Cornell said Target rang up a record day of online sales on Thursday.

Overall Thanksgiving Day online sales rose 14.3 percent from a year earlier, according to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark.

The National Retail Federation is projecting that sales for November and December will rise 4.1 percent to $616.9 billion, which would mark the most bountiful holiday season in three years. Holiday sales grew 3.1 percent in 2013.

It was unclear what impact a movement to boycott Black Friday in protest of a grand jury's decision not to indict the police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in Missouri might have on the holiday season. The movement has gained some momentum on Twitter and Facebook.

OUR Walmart, a group of Wal-Mart employees pushing for higher wages and benefits, is also hoping to use Black Friday to spread its message with protests planned at 1,600 stores across the country.

(reporting by Nandita Bose and Nathan Layne; Editing by Jilian Mincer and Paul Simao)

Obamacare Sign-Ups Near 500,000 After First Week

More than 460,000 people enrolled in a private health insurance plan on the federally run Obamacare exchanges in 37 states during the first week of the sign-up period for 2015 coverage, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday.

These enrollments are almost evenly split between renewals of existing customers and new sign-ups, according to a report issued by the department. More than 1 million people have submitted applications for financial assistance and coverage and almost 1.6 million have reviewed prices for insurance using HealthCare.gov's window-shopping feature between Nov. 15, the opening day of the three-month health insurance exchange enrollment period, and Nov. 21, the department disclosed.

President Barack Obama's administration aims to sign up more than 9 million people for private health insurance via these exchange marketplaces by the close of the enrollment period on Feb. 15, including renewing most of the approximately 7 million people who already have insurance policies obtained through the federally operated exchanges and those run by 13 states and the District of Columbia.

"We had a solid start, but we have a lot of work to do every day between now and February 15," Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Matthews Burwell said in a press release.

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services was forced to acknowledge it overcounted Obamacare health insurance enrollments for this year by hundreds of thousands by including people who purchased dental plans, after a report by Bloomberg News revealed the error, which was uncovered by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

During a conference call Wednesday with reporters, Burwell pledged greater transparency about the Obamacare exchanges. The Department of Health and Human Services will issue weekly and monthly reports on health insurance exchange enrollment, Burwell said.

The number of enrollees during the first week of the current sign-up push is more than four times the number who selected health insurance plans during all of October 2013, when the exchanges launched amid crippling technical problems.

States including Kentucky, Maryland and California that have their own exchanges also have reported strong enrollments so far.

Half a million enrollees in a week puts federal Obamacare officials on pace to sign up close to 1.8 million people during the first month, but the system remains far from the 9.1 million target for 2015 enrollees, which Burwell established earlier this month. The administration is standing by that aspiration, however, she said.

"We are staying with that number," Burwell said. "We have a lot of work before us, and we're going to continue focusing on that."

As of last month, nearly 7 million people had health insurance policies purchased through an exchange. The federal marketplaces and most state-run exchanges will automatically renew customers into their same plans for next year if they don't choose a different one. But with health insurance premium increases and decreases varying widely across the nation -- especially for the least costly and most popular policies on the market in 2014 -- consumers who fail to shop around could wind up paying much more by standing pat instead of seeking more affordable plans for next year.

"We are strongly urging and encouraging everyone to come back, make sure your information is the most up-to-date," Burwell said. "For many, many people it is very important to come back and shop."

The deadline to choose a health insurance plan that will be in place on Jan. 1 is Dec. 15. Current enrollees who automatically are renewed into their policies can still switch to a new one for the rest of next year after that date, up to the final deadline for 2015 coverage on Feb. 15.

This post has been updated with details from a conference call Burwell had with reporters.

Oil Stocks Take A Nosedive After OPEC Decision

By Rodrigo Campos

NEW YORK, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Shale stocks have been hard-hit as investors see margins all but evaporating following the slide in crude oil prices, but the U.S. shale energy boom is not over.

An index of oil and gas exploration and production tumbled 8.15 percent on Friday as U.S. crude fell almost 10 percent to around $66.36 per barrel to hit its lowest in 4-1/2 years.

The slide came the day after oil cartel OPEC decided not to cut output in a meeting in Vienna. Prior to the decision, Saudi officials were reported as saying the kingdom, with its large currency reserves, was prepared to withstand oil prices as low as $70-$80 per barrel for up to a year.

But the weaker shale players may not have that long.

"We do not know if OPEC has ulterior motives to let oil prices drift lower and pinch the global (exploration and production) sector, or if reaching a consensus on cuts was just too challenging," wrote Wells Fargo Securities in a Friday client note. "What is clear is that lower cash flows are highly likely to translate into lower E&P spending."

U.S. crude prices were catching up to Thursday's action in Brent as markets across the United States were closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. Friday's was a half-day session.

"We'll wait to see the trend next week when there's full market volume, however it's clear that as oil prices come down there will be pressure for the weaker of the companies in the sector, particularly exploration and the ones that are highly indebted," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

The overall energy sector of the S&P 500 fell 6.3 percent on Friday, adding to its year-to-date losses, now at 10.3 percent.

Fourteen of the sector's more than 40 stocks are within 2 percent of a 52-week low and the sector's weighting on the S&P 500 has dropped to single digits, closing below 8 percent after Friday's shellacking, according to Reuters data.

Nearly 90 percent of the sector's shares are trading below their 100-day moving average.

However, the sharp declines also create an opportunity.

"We recently moved from an underweight to a neutral weight rating in energy, so directionally we agree with the idea that this weakness is a buying opportunity, but it is very hard to tell where the bottom is," said Tony Roth, chief investment officer at Wilmington Trust in Wilmington, Delaware.

"Crude seems to have no floor right now, and we could easily see the price drop into the low $60s."

With the big stock price drops, others see a run to consolidation. The sector subindex is down 12 percent in 2014, with year-to-date losses of more than 20 percent in seven companies.

"I think we'll see some healthy consolidation take place," said Brian Jacobsen, chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin.

"Some may wither on the vine, but technology has improved to make it profitable to extract at a lower price point than last year. As a result, we'll probably see some opportunistic buying."

Jacobsen and Krosby said the slide in oil prices and the sector's shares does not mean the boom in the energy sector in the United States is ending, but will likely enter a new stage of development.

"The renaissance isn't over," said Jacobsen. "It's just maturing." (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Black Friday Is One Of The Busiest Days For Gun Purchases

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. (AP) — More gun sales than ever are slipping through the federal background check system — 186,000 last year, a rate of 512 gun sales a day, as states fail to consistently provide thorough, real-time updates on criminal and mental histories to the FBI.

At no time of year is this problem more urgent. This Friday opens the busiest season for gun purchases, when requests for background checks speed up to nearly two a second, testing the limits of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.

The stakes are high: In the U.S., there are already nine guns for every 10 people, and someone is killed with a firearm every 16 minutes. Mass shootings are happening every few weeks.

"We have a perfect storm coming," FBI manager Kimberly Del Greco told The Associated Press during a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the system.

Much of the responsibility for preventing criminals and the mentally ill from buying guns is shouldered by about 500 men and women who run the system from inside the FBI's criminal justice center, a gray office building with concrete walls and mirrored windows just outside Bridgeport, West Virginia.

By federal law, NICS researchers must race against the clock: They have until the end of the third business day following an attempted firearm purchase to determine whether or not a buyer is eligible.

"They won't proceed or deny a transaction unless they are ABSOLUTELY certain the information they have is correct and sufficient to sustain that decision," FBI spokesman Stephen G. Fischer told the AP.

In roughly two percent of the checks handled by the FBI, agents don't get this information in time. If three business days pass without a federal response, buyers can legally get their guns, whether or not the check was completed.

Americans are buying more than twice as many guns a year now as they did when the background checks were first implemented in 1998. And that means more gun sales are effectively beating the system.

The federal government often takes the heat in debates over gun rights, but the FBI says states are largely to blame for this problem. They voluntarily submit records, which are often missing information about mental health rulings or criminal convictions, and aren't always rapidly updated to reflect restraining orders or other urgent reasons to deny a sale.

"We are stewards of the states' records," Del Greco said. "It's really critical that we have accurate information. Sometimes we just don't."

There are more than 48,000 gun retailers in the U.S., from Wal-Mart stores to local pawn shops. Store clerks can use the FBI's online E-Check System, which federal officials say is more efficient. But nearly half the checks are phoned in. Three call centers — in Kentucky, Texas, and Wheeling, W.Va. — take these calls from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. every day but Christmas.

NICS did about 58,000 checks on a typical day last year. That surged to 145,000 on Black Friday 2013. They're bringing in 100 more workers than usual for the post-Thanksgiving rush this year.

The call centers have no access to privileged information about buyers' backgrounds, and make no decisions. They just type in their name, address, birthdate, Social Security Number and other information into the system. On Black Fridays, the work can be grueling: One woman took a call that lasted four hours when a dealer phoned in the maximum 99 checks.

"Rules had to be stretched," recalled Sam Demarco, her supervisor. "We can't transfer calls. Someone had to sit in her seat for her while she went to the bathroom."

In the years since these background checks were required, about 71 percent have found no red flags and produced instant approvals.

But ten factors can disqualify gun purchasers: a felony conviction, an arrest warrant, a documented drug problem or mental illness, undocumented immigration status, a dishonorable military discharge, a renunciation of U.S. citizenship, a restraining order, a history of domestic violence, or an indictment for any crime punishable by longer than one year of prison time.

Any sign that one of these factors could be in a buyer's background produces a red-flag, which sends the check to the FBI researchers to approve, deny or investigate. They scour state records in the federal database, and often call local authorities for more information.

"It takes a lot of effort ... for an examiner to go out and look at court reports, look at judges' documents, try to find a final disposition so we can get back to a gun dealer on whether they can sell that gun or not," Del Greco said. "And we don't always get back to them."

These workers have considerable responsibility, but little independent authority. They must use skill and judgment, balancing the rights of gun owners and the need to keep would-be killers from getting firearms.

Researcher Valerie Sargo said outstanding warrants often come up when they examine a red flag, and that can help police make arrests.

"It makes you feel good that this person is not supposed to have a firearm and you kept it out of their hands," she said.

It also weighs on them when the red flags aren't resolved in time. Tacked to a cubicle wall, a sign reads: "Our policy is to ALWAYS blame the computer."

FBI contractors and employees oversaw more than 9 million checks in the first full year, when the NICS system was established as part of Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1998. By last year, they oversaw more than 21 million. In all, only 1.25 percent of attempted purchases are denied. Denials can be appealed.

People can get guns without background checks in many states by buying weapons at gun shows or from individuals, a loophole the National Rifle Association does not want closed. But even the NRA agrees that the NICS system needs better data.

"Any database is only going to function as well as the information contained within," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.

Del Greco doesn't see the states' data improving soon, which only adds to the immense challenge of getting through huge numbers of requisite checks on Black Friday.

___

Associated Press Writer Matt Stroud can be reached through Twitter @mattstroud.

You're More Likely To Inherit Your Dad's Social Status Than His Height

Social mobility is a myth.

That is the depressing conclusion -- or, if you're already part of the social elite, the great news -- of a new study by economists Gregory Clark of the University of California, Davis, and Neil Cummins of the London School of Economics. The hope that we can claw our way up from our low station to someplace fancier is a delusion for most of us, according to this study. We inherit social status from our parents just as much as, if not more than, our physical traits.

And this social status often persists across many, many generations. The title of the study -- "Surnames and Social Mobility in England, 1170–2012" -- gives you some idea of just how many generations we're talking about here: 28 generations of 30 years each. The study looked at centuries of data on the social statuses of English families. It found that many of the families who were socially elite landowners in 1170 -- your Montgomerys, Nevilles, and Percys -- were still socially elite in 2012.

"Strong forces of familial culture, social connections, and genetics must connect the generations," the authors wrote. "There really are quasi-physical 'Laws of Inheritance.'"

The study used attendance at Oxford and Cambridge Universities ("Oxbridge") as a proxy for high social status; typically only elite students go to those schools. Across generations, the "correlation coefficient" -- a number that shows the strength of the correlation between two things, with a 0 meaning not correlated at all and 1 meaning perfect positive correlation -- was between 0.7 and 0.9 for generations of the same family going to Oxbridge. In comparison, the correlation coefficient for height between generations is just 0.64, according to one study cited by the researchers.

Hang on, you might be saying, isn't England notorious for low social mobility? Isn't it the land of Downton Abbey-style snooty inherited wealth? Sure. But guess what? The United States is really not much better. A 2013 study by Miles Corak of the University of Ottawa found that the U.K. and U.S. were two of the least socially mobile countries in the developed world. Here's a chart that puts this in perspective:

Note that, according to Corak's study, low levels of social mobility -- meaning it's hard to move from one social level to a higher one -- are also associated with high levels of income inequality.

This is the kind of world that French economist Thomas Piketty warns could become increasingly common -- one in which inherited wealth just keeps growing while incomes stagnate. It's the sort of the world we're living in today, come to think of it.

Most worryingly, the Clark-Cummins study found that social mobility hasn't really improved significantly in recent decades, despite social programs aimed at boosting it, such as higher tax rates on wealth and programs to help lower-class students get into Oxbridge.

Maybe we just haven't given such programs enough time to work, though. And given the many economic risks created by widening inequality, we shouldn't stop trying to boost social mobility.

Doggy Day Care Chain Makes Pet Sitters Sign Noncompetes To Protect 'Trade Secrets'

WASHINGTON -- Last month, The Huffington Post revealed that Jimmy John’s sandwich shops subject their low-wage workers to stringent noncompete agreements, theoretically barring them from working at other sandwich shops after they leave their jobs at Jimmy John's.

So if the guy making your tuna sandwich has to sign a noncompete, then why not the guy looking after your golden retriever for the weekend?

Camp Bow Wow is a doggy day care franchise. The company has more than 100 North American locations where pets board overnight, and it also offers in-home pet-sitting services. Camp Bow Wow workers look after dogs. But before they can do that, they apparently have to sign strict noncompete contracts similar to the ones used by Jimmy John’s.

According to a Camp Bow Wow “employee confidentiality and non-compete agreement” obtained by HuffPost, by signing the contract employees agree not to work for a competing business within 25 miles of their Camp Bow Wow location's "franchise territory" for a period of two years following the contract's termination. (Each pet care location is surrounded by its own designated territory, meaning that the actual distance within which employees are barred from working may exceed 25 miles.) The definition of a “competitive business” is vague yet broad: “any business operating in competition with, or similar to, [Camp Bow Wow’s] business.”

In other words, if you leave Camp Bow Wow and want to continue caring for dogs, this contract, if successfully enforced, would leave you with two equally unattractive options: You could either move to another city, or wait two whole years before seeking your new dog-sitting gig.

What’s more, Camp Bow Wow asserts the rights to any invention its workers come up with during their employment. The contract says, “Employee acknowledges that all Inventions are the sole property of D.O.G.,” which is short for D.O.G. Development LLC, the corporate name under which Camp Bow Wow franchised its locations until recently. That means if a Camp Bow Wow dog sitter comes up with, say, a neat idea for a new dog harness, the company could lay claim to it.

To be clear: HuffPost knows of no instances in which Camp Bow Wow tried to legally enforce this contract. A spokeswoman for Camp Bow Wow said the company would not comment on the noncompete, saying it is “corporate policy for Camp Bow Wow to not discuss its procedures and guidelines in public.” The company’s founder, Heidi Ganahl, and her booker for speaking appearances did not return phone calls seeking requests for comment.

It’s worth noting that as a franchiser, Camp Bow Wow does not even technically employ the workers in question -- its franchisees do. Indeed, the International Franchise Association, a lobby group of which Camp Bow Wow is a member, likes to say that franchisees are independent business owners who exercise full control over their workforces -- an interpretation that helps insulate big franchisers from liabilities.

Yet in this noncompete agreement, Camp Bow Wow seems to be trying to dictate the employment terms between its franchisees and their workers. And according to the company’s franchise disclosure documents, the franchisees who run individual Camp Bow Wow locations are required by contract to make workers sign the noncompete. The franchise agreement states:

“You must maintain the confidentiality of our confidential information and trade secrets and adopt reasonable procedures to prevent unauthorized disclosure of our trade secrets and confidential information, including without limitation the obligation to require that all of your Personnel execute our nondisclosure and non-competition form.”

Noncompetes have typically been reserved for high-ranking executives or employees with access to sensitive business information, though they’re becoming increasingly common in various fields of work, including low-wage ones. Business owners argue that they’re merely protecting their investments, while critics say the restrictions laid out can be unfair and unreasonable.

The revelation of Jimmy John’s noncompete agreement brought widespread mockery upon the Illinois-based sandwich chain, as well as demands for an investigation from dozens of members of Congress. As those lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Labor Department and the Federal Trade Commission, “there is no justifiable business interest” in imposing a noncompete on workers who earn little more than the minimum wage and “are not privy to any of the company’s proprietary information.”

It isn’t clear what necessitates such an agreement at Camp Bow Wow, either. Rank-and-file workers at the doggy day care company are known as camp “counselors.” According to the company website, counselors "are the ones who ‘tidy’ each cabin, fluff the fleeces on the Kuranda Cots for the overnite Campers and tuck each camper into their own spacious, comfy and clean Camp Bow Wow cabin.”

Several workers on review websites described the pay at Camp Bow Wow as low-wage. Glassdoor.com pegged the average hourly pay for a camp counselor at $8.89 per hour, which is barely above the minimum wage in many states.

According to a Wall Street Journal report from August, company founder Ganahl previously had a career in pharmaceutical sales, a field in which firms frequently use noncompetes to discourage workers from jumping ship with company information and clients. The Journal reported that Ganahl recently agreed to sell Camp Bow Wow to VCA, the pet health care company, for an undisclosed sum, though she will remain the company’s chief executive.

Legal Pot In Washington Bringing In Even More Tax Revenue Than Predicted

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington's legal recreational marijuana market is bringing in more tax revenue to the state than originally predicted, state officials said Wednesday.

The most recent revenue forecast released by the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council shows that the industry is expected to bring in more than $694 million in state revenue through the middle of 2019. A previous forecast in September had that projection at about $636 million.

The latest report shows that nearly $43 million from a variety of marijuana-related taxes — including excise, sales, and business taxes — is expected to be collected through the middle of next year.

About $237 million is expected for the next two-year budget that ends mid-2017, and $415 million more is expected for the 2017-19 budget biennium.

The passage of Initiative 502 in 2012 allowed the sale of marijuana to adults for recreational use at licensed stores, which started opening this summer. Under the initiative, some of the tax money from the new system can be dedicated to the state general fund, while other portions are supposed to be devoted to health care, education and substance-abuse prevention.

So far, the state has issued 86 retail marijuana licenses, and 70 stores have opened. As of this week, revenue from total sales of recreational marijuana — including between producers, processers and product sold by retailers — totaled more than $40 million, with the state receiving more than $10 million in excise taxes, according to the state Liquor Control Board.

Steve Lerch, the revenue council's executive director, noted that because the industry is still new and developing, the numbers will continue to change.

"We continue to see growth in the number of producers, of processers and of retailers," Lerch said. With increasingly more access to retail marijuana, "we would expect to see some growth in those revenues," he said.

The Term 'Black Friday' Has Lost All Meaning

Black Friday is not just a single day anymore.

In the past few years, U.S. retailers have stretched "Black Friday," which once meant the day after Thanksgiving, across days and even weeks of bargains. That trend could continue if companies -- struggling to grow sales in an anemic economy -- find the new strategy pays off.

The change could give hope to shoppers tired of rising at the crack of dawn, or leaving their Thanksgiving table, to battle other shoppers for cheap DVD players. It could also make life a little easier for Americans who rely on Black Friday sales to take care of their holiday shopping.

For now, many of the best deals are still to be found in stores on Black Friday and, increasingly, on Thanksgiving Day. Target, for example, is opening stores at 6:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving. But it also offered some Black Friday deals on Nov. 10, nearly three weeks before the traditional Black Friday, with more sales to come in the days before Thanksgiving.

The extended deals are part of a larger strategy to offer a Black Friday that's convenient for shoppers, according to Jenna Reck, a Target spokeswoman.

"Black Friday at Target this year is about giving our guests access to top Black Friday deals no matter how, where or when they want to shop," Reck wrote in an email.

Online juggernaut Amazon is starting its Black Friday sale on Nov. 21, six days before Thanksgiving and the earliest it has ever offered Black Friday deals, said Julie Law, an Amazon spokeswoman.

The company made the shift after an uptick in traffic last year on the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving, Law said. "Those days that we see customers shopping more, we're going to make sure that we've got great deals on those days," she said.

Walmart, the nation's biggest retailer, has made the shift to a longer Black Friday period most explicitly. It touts what it calls the “New Black Friday” -- five days of deals. It's also hosting its second annual “Pre-Black Friday Event,” starting Friday, Nov. 21 at 8 a.m., giving shoppers the chance to buy TVs, Lego sets, KitchenAid Stand Mixers and other items at prices the company claims match or beat competitors’ lowest offers. This year's Pre-Black Friday sale has twice the number of items offered last year, according to the company.

Duncan Mac Naughton, the chief merchandising officer for Walmart U.S., told reporters at a New Jersey Walmart on Tuesday that the retailer was "building the shoulders" of Black Friday.

“If you look at the customer today, they’re very dynamic, they want to shop at different times,” he said.

“You could choose to go out on Thanksgiving and stand on line and be cold," he said, or customers could start their shopping as early as this Friday with the Pre-Black Friday Event.

Online prices start dropping in mid-November and are typically best on Thanksgiving Day, according to the chart below from Adobe. Some stores are also offering "Black Friday" sales starting several days before Thanksgiving:

This shift is partly a response to changing shopping habits. People keep getting more comfortable with online buying, and the idea of trundling out to stores during retailer-mandated times for specific discounts keeps getting less appealing.

Just 28 percent of Americans say they plan to set foot inside a store on Black Friday, according to a recent survey from Bankrate.com, a personal finance site.

Offering deals earlier and more often is also a way for retailers to better get their hands on the limited disposable income of shoppers whose incomes have stagnated in recent years.

“They’re targeting consumers on the lower end who once their budget is gone, it’s gone,” said Ken Perkins, the founder of Retail Metrics, a retail analytics firm. “They’re really trying to pull sales in as early as possible.”

When Black Friday first started to become popular decades ago, retailers offered “really incredible, earth-shaking” deals on that day, according to Mark Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia Business School who is the former CEO of Sears Canada. Now, shoppers may actually get better deals the closer it gets to Christmas, as retailers try to unload their excess inventory before the holiday, Cohen told The Huffington Post.

Still, there’s a strong perception that any sale involving the term “Black Friday” offers the best discount, thanks to retailer and media hype. “This is sort of a mass psychosis,” Cohen said. “This whole frenzy is completely unwarranted.”

Shoppers in a New York City Macy's during the week before Christmas in 1942.

The slow stretching of Black Friday across several days may be a sign of calmer times to come. Retailers are leaning less on extreme discounts to draw people into stores, Carol Spieckerman, the CEO of newmarketbuilders, a retail strategy firm, told HuffPost. Instead, a broader period of discounts will likely create a more relaxing environment that encourages shoppers to spend their time browsing in one store instead of hopping between harried shops for discounts.

“If you look at the way most major retailers are staging out their deals, this year marks a really major departure from that frenzied prescribed herding mentality and into a more reasonable, trusting environment,” Spieckerman said.

Doritos-Flavored Mountain Dew Is Real, PepsiCo Confirms

PepsiCo Inc. is concocting a version of its Mountain Dew soda flavored to taste like cheesy Doritos chips, the company stated Friday.

The soda and snack giant said it tested the new flavor, dubbed “Dewitos,” on college students. The company did not reveal which colleges participated in the test, but at least one Reddit user, who goes by the username joes_nipples, posted a photo of the taste test on Friday, saying the soda did, in fact, taste like Doritos.

“We are always testing out new flavors of Mountain Dew, and giving our fans a voice in helping decide on the next new product has always been important to us,” a spokeswoman for PepsiCo said in a statement to The Huffington Post. “We opened up the DEW flavor vault and gave students a chance to try this Doritos-inspired flavor as part of a small program at colleges and universities.”

This isn't the first time PepsiCo has combined the highly caffeinated soda and the cheese-dusted nacho chips. PepsiCo also owns Frito-Lay, which makes Doritos, and the company has a long history of linking the two brands through new flavors or joint promotions. In 2008, PepsiCo released Doritos Quest, a sweet chip with a mystery flavor that was later identified as Mountain Dew.

The company has also long promoted Doritos and Mountain Dew, together enshrined in video gaming culture as the ultimate snacking cuisine, in marketing campaigns promoting the release of games on Microsoft’s Xbox.

Earlier this year, PepsiCo began printing special codes on bottles of Mountain Dew and bags of Doritos that can be used to unlock gear and increase experience points in “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare,” which was released this week.

It’s unclear whether the Doritos-flavored soda will ever reach store shelves. But there's evidence to suggest that the Doritos and Mountain Dew combination is popular: In June, YouTube chef Rosanna Pansino introduced the world to Mountain Dew-flavored cupcakes topped with a Doritos crumble. And interest in the two brands, as shown by this Google Trends graph, seems to be on the rise:

This story has been updated.

Why Your Boss Is Afraid To Give You A Raise, According To One CEO

Kip Tindell, CEO of The Container Store, pays his salespeople an average of $50,000 a year -- more than double the retail industry average of less than $24,000. Yet even he has trouble getting his own managers to give raises to deserving employees.

"One of the hardest things to do is to get managers, even in this company, to pay really great people well," the 61-year-old executive recently told The Huffington Post. "They always think they're helping the company by paying them less. There's a sort of safety in paying somebody less. It takes bravery to pay somebody more."

People are afraid to aim too high, said Tindell. Executives and managers limit themselves unnecessarily in a number of ways, such as shunning job candidates whom they see as "overqualified" and thus too expensive. In Tindell's view, that's balderdash. And a bad business decision.

"Nobody's overqualified," he said. "Paying great people well is not an altruistic benefit or sacrifice -- it's a profit strategy. It's a strategy that leads to higher corporate performance for all of the stakeholders."

Last month, Tindell released Uncontainable, a book describing his business philosophy. At The Container Store, Tindell says he runs a meritocracy where an employee's compensation is "directly commensurate" with what the employee contributes. Tindell's pay policies are rooted firmly in the profit motive. By paying his best staffers well, he says, he's able to retain his star employees. He'd rather shell out the dough for one great worker than employ three mediocre ones.

The Container Store, true to its name, sells all kinds of organizational materials, from bins and baskets to crates and shelves. Founded in 1978, the retailer has made it onto Fortune's list of "100 Best Companies to Work For" each of the past 15 years. That's good news for the 6,000 or so employees who work in the company's 67 stores and at its corporate headquarters in Coppell, Texas.

The chain went public in 2013 and saw its stock double on its first day. Since then, though, the stock has slumped nearly 50 percent, and now lingers just above its IPO price of $18.

Container Store CEO Kip Tindell speaks to employees. (Image courtesy The Container Store)

Tindell himself made nearly $1.7 million in 2013, with his base salary accounting for $675,000 of that, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He says his annual compensation can be up to 35 times more than that of a typical store worker, depending on the performance-based bonuses he receives. According to a report released by the Economic Policy Institute earlier this year, the average CEO of a top U.S. firm makes about $15.2 million a year, nearly 300 times more than the average worker.

Tindell had strong words for executives who squeeze the wages of line workers in order to bolster their own paychecks. When the people in the C-suite accept a lower salary, he said, it leaves more money available to pay everyone else.

"CEOs and top executives in America are overpaid, relative to the rank-and-file worker," said Tindell. "CEOs are important, but not as important as they're made out to be."

Do you work at The Container Store? Let us know about your experience there. Send an email to kim.bhasin@huffingtonpost.com.

What's Behind Dear Kate's No-Underwear Yoga Pants

Lingerie company Dear Kate's new no-underwear yoga pants make a lot of promises: No panty lines. No bunching. No riding up. No camel toe. No stressing about comfort. And they'll make your butt look great.

If they can deliver all that, the new pants, which have a thick, absorbent lining around the crotch, may be able to shove their way into the busy market for yoga gear. That's the plan, at least, for Dear Kate founder Julie Sygiel, whose company is making its first foray away from undergarments.

"We surveyed our customers and said, 'Hey what do you want to see from us next,'" Sygiel, who studied chemical engineering at Brown University, told the Huffington Post in an interview. "Yoga wear was by far the winner."

She may have caught on to something.

Most women wear a thong or other kind of panties with their yoga pants. But around 17 percent of women wear nothing at all underneath their pants when they work out, according to Dear Kate's market research. A survey conducted by Groupon earlier this year found that about 25 percent of women go commando while practicing yoga.

Alexandra Seijo, who teaches yoga at Equinox and Pure Yoga in New York City, said she doesn't usually wear underwear while practicing, and will definitely check our Dear Kate's new pants. She wants to be focused on what's happening internally when she's doing yoga, so something that would keep her mind from getting distracted would be a plus, she said.

"Sometimes we do get caught up in the external, when the purpose of yoga is to go within," Seijo told HuffPost. "The last thing you want to worry about is tugging, pulling, pinching, having any kind of clothing malfunction because you want to be fully immersed in the practice."

Still, no-underwear yoga pants have their limits. Some may have issues trusting the concept of shunning their underwear, especially after Lululemon's see-through yoga pant debacle in 2013. And they need to be washed after each use without an undergarment.

Dear Kate started as an underwear company, but decided to expand into yoga-wear. (Photo courtesy Dear Kate)

Founded in 2012, Dear Kate has raised $1.2 million thus far from private investors, selling a selection of undergarments that present an alternative to "period panties." They have extra lining and are made of materials that wick moisture, release stains and resist leaks. They're also aimed at women who have bladder issues after pregnancy.

Now, Dear Kate is trying to grab a piece of the growing market for yoga gear. Global sales of so-called "activewear" climbed 7 percent and surpassed $33 billion in the 12 months ending in June, according to data from market research firm NPD Group. Athletic wear companies, fast-fashion emporiums and even some haute couture labels are trying to claim their slice of the yoga pie. Meanwhile, smaller yoga apparel makers are battling each other, vying to be the next Lululemon.

The regular, full-length yoga pant from Dear Kate costs $118. Lululemon charges between $82 and $128 for most of its yoga pants, while many similar styles from rival Athleta run from $64 to $98.

While items like no-underwear running shorts have been around for a long time, Sygiel is hoping that her more versatile yoga product will set it apart. And the stretchy pants aren't just for yoga -- women use them for many athletics, from pilates to running and biking.

Sygiel's yoga pants, made at a factory in Queens, New York, are getting attention even before they become available to the public. A 30-day Kickstarter campaign for the pants attracted more than $150,000 in funding. Though Sygiel declined to share precise sales numbers, she said that in 2014, the company expects to triple its revenue total from the year prior.

Dear Kate's pants are expected to launch in mid-November, but are available for pre-order now.

Dear Kate's no-underwear yoga pants have a thick, moisture-wicking lining. (Photo courtesy Dear Kate)

I Experienced The Dreaded AT&T 'Throttling' Firsthand

Last month, when I was in California for a work trip, my phone suddenly became useless. Even though I was in downtown San Francisco, the data connection was so slow that it was pretty much impossible to download email, use apps, browse the Web or load photos on Instagram.

I was being "throttled." AT&T had deliberately slowed down my data speed because I used more than five gigabytes during a billing cycle, even though I have had an unlimited data plan since 2009. (AT&T no longer offers unlimited data plans, but I have renewed my contract, so I've been allowed to keep it.)

AT&T began throttling in 2011. But the policy was thrust into the spotlight this week, when the Federal Trade Commission sued the telecom giant for slowing data speeds, sometimes by more than 90 percent, for unlimited data customers without "adequately disclos[ing]" the policy.

“AT&T promised its customers ‘unlimited’ data, and in many instances, it has failed to deliver on that promise,” FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “The issue here is simple: ‘unlimited’ means unlimited.”

AT&T shot back, calling the suit "baseless" and pointing to a press release and "2,000" subsequent news articles when the company made the changes in 2011.

"[B]efore any customer is affected, they are also notified by text message," Wayne Watts, AT&T's senior executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement Tuesday.

The FTC said AT&T has throttled 3.5 million customers a total of 25 million times. I'm one of those customers.

Here's the thing. Even though I've gone over five gigabytes in four of the last five months, I've only gotten one text message from AT&T warning me that I was approaching the threshold. That was in May. Last month, my phone slowed without warning.

When I reached out to AT&T about why I only got a text message that first time, and I didn't get a text message each time I approached five gigabytes in a month, the company pointed to an obscure page on its website informing customers that their "speeds may be reduced without another text message reminder."

The company also said I had received a notice with my bill in summer 2011 announcing the changes. But as the FTC points out in its lawsuit, the notice doesn't "disclose the degree to which the customers’ data speed would be reduced,
and the impact that the reduced speed would have on customers’ ability to use their device."

"We stand by the statement from earlier this week," Mark Siegel, AT&T's executive director of media relations, told The Huffington Post in a phone call. "And we stand by what is available on our public website about how we handle our unlimited data customers."

AT&T could easily send texts each time customers approach the five gigabyte threshold. After all, the company sends texts when your bill is due, when it's paid, if you are going over your voice minutes and when it's added a cell tower in your area. Or it could send an email. I've received at least seven emails from AT&T this month, five for promotions or trying to get me to upgrade.

But throttling is something AT&T appears to want to keep quiet. Researchers hired by the company to conduct focus groups about throttling suggested not talking too much about it, according to the FTC lawsuit.

From the FTC lawsuit:

The researchers observed that “[t]he more consumers talked about it the more they didn’t like it.” This led the researchers to advise that “[s]aying less is more, [so] don’t say too much” in marketing communications concerning such a program.

AT&T says it throttles customers to manage network congestion. But the FTC says throttling happens even when the network isn't congested. AT&T doesn't throttle those people on its other data plans who use significant amounts of data, the FTC says in the lawsuit.

AT&T seems to use throttling to encourage unlimited data customers to sign up for tiered data plans, which make them pay for as much data as they use and can be more expensive for heavy users. Those who quit AT&T's unlimited data plans, the FTC points out, have been hit with early termination fees in the hundreds of dollars.

Verizon also has customers holding onto unlimited data plans, even though it doesn't offer them anymore. The company announced over the summer that it would throttle heavy unlimited data users during peak times, but backed off after receiving widespread criticism, including from the chairman of the FCC.

Unlimited data customers are not as valuable to the companies as those with tiered plans because they will pay the same each month regardless of how much data they use, forever. Data use is predicted to explode to 9.1 gigabytes a month in 2018, from 1.4 gigabytes per month last year, according to Cisco.

Bekim Ukperaj, who works at a golf course in Stamford, Connecticut, and admitted he uses his phone "a lot," said he regularly exceeds five gigabytes of monthly data and is throttled. AT&T said it sent Ukperaj two text messages in January 2013 as he neared the data threshold, and included the throttling notice in his bill in 2011. But Ukperaj said he doesn't remember any notification that he was nearing five gigabytes. He now uses a tool on his LG G2 smartphone to alert him when he's getting close.

"A warning would have been nice in all those previous months I didn't alert myself," Ukperaj said, adding that sometimes his phone was useless for weeks while it was throttled. Ukperaj said that when he renewed his unlimited data contract in December, AT&T representatives didn't warn him that he could be throttled. "You'd think that if you renewed your contract, they'd say something more about the data limiting," Ukperaj said.

AT&T's 4G LTE network typically has download speeds of five to 12 megabits per second (Mbps), according to the FTC. When I was throttled in September, my download speed was cut to a slow 0.17 Mbps, rendering most of the functions on my smartphone useless.

Results of a speedtest while being throttled (left) and before being throttled (right).

"You're looking at data speeds that pretty much predate the smartphone era," Bill Menezes, an analyst who specializes in mobile networks at Gartner, the technology research firm, said when he reviewed the results of the speed test I conducted while being throttled in September.

Frank Guido, a Staten Island, N.Y.-based photographer, was so frustrated with his throttled data speed of 0.46mbps that after dealing with it for only two days he called AT&T and switched to a data plan he now shares with family.

"I'm away from home days at a time for my job so I can't live on Edge speed," he said, referring to the older, slower network.

He was an AT&T unlimited data subscriber who regularly went over five gigabytes a month, though he only first noticed his phone's data connection was slow over the weekend. He said that he has never received a text message or an email telling him he'd get throttled if he went over a certain number of gigabytes.

But after the FTC lawsuit was announced, he called to switch back to his unlimited data plan. Because AT&T no longer offers the plan, his request has to be approved by management. He'll find out in early November if AT&T approved the switch.

I Experienced The Dreaded AT&T 'Throttling' Firsthand

Last month, when I was in California for a work trip, my phone suddenly became useless. Even though I was in downtown San Francisco, the data connection was so slow that it was pretty much impossible to download email, use apps, browse the Web or load photos on Instagram.

I was being "throttled." AT&T had deliberately slowed down my data speed because I used more than five gigabytes during a billing cycle, even though I have had an unlimited data plan since 2009. (AT&T no longer offers unlimited data plans, but I have renewed my contract, so I've been allowed to keep it.)

AT&T began throttling in 2011. But the policy was thrust into the spotlight this week, when the Federal Trade Commission sued the telecom giant for slowing data speeds, sometimes by more than 90 percent, for unlimited data customers without "adequately disclos[ing]" the policy.

“AT&T promised its customers ‘unlimited’ data, and in many instances, it has failed to deliver on that promise,” FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “The issue here is simple: ‘unlimited’ means unlimited.”

AT&T shot back, calling the suit "baseless" and pointing to a press release and "2,000" subsequent news articles when the company made the changes in 2011.

"[B]efore any customer is affected, they are also notified by text message," Wayne Watts, AT&T's senior executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement Tuesday.

The FTC said AT&T has throttled 3.5 million customers a total of 25 million times. I'm one of those customers.

Here's the thing. Even though I've gone over five gigabytes in four of the last five months, I've only gotten one text message from AT&T warning me that I was approaching the threshold. That was in May. Last month, my phone slowed without warning.

When I reached out to AT&T about why I only got a text message that first time, and I didn't get a text message each time I approached five gigabytes in a month, the company pointed to an obscure page on its website informing customers that their "speeds may be reduced without another text message reminder."

The company also said I had received a notice with my bill in summer 2011 announcing the changes. But as the FTC points out in its lawsuit, the notice doesn't "disclose the degree to which the customers’ data speed would be reduced,
and the impact that the reduced speed would have on customers’ ability to use their device."

"We stand by the statement from earlier this week," Mark Siegel, AT&T's executive director of media relations, told The Huffington Post in a phone call. "And we stand by what is available on our public website about how we handle our unlimited data customers."

AT&T could easily send texts each time customers approach the five gigabyte threshold. After all, the company sends texts when your bill is due, when it's paid, if you are going over your voice minutes and when it's added a cell tower in your area. Or it could send an email. I've received at least seven emails from AT&T this month, five for promotions or trying to get me to upgrade.

But throttling is something AT&T appears to want to keep quiet. Researchers hired by the company to conduct focus groups about throttling suggested not talking too much about it, according to the FTC lawsuit.

From the FTC lawsuit:

The researchers observed that “[t]he more consumers talked about it the more they didn’t like it.” This led the researchers to advise that “[s]aying less is more, [so] don’t say too much” in marketing communications concerning such a program.

AT&T says it throttles customers to manage network congestion. But the FTC says throttling happens even when the network isn't congested. AT&T doesn't throttle those people on its other data plans who use significant amounts of data, the FTC says in the lawsuit.

AT&T seems to use throttling to encourage unlimited data customers to sign up for tiered data plans, which make them pay for as much data as they use and can be more expensive for heavy users. Those who quit AT&T's unlimited data plans, the FTC points out, have been hit with early termination fees in the hundreds of dollars.

Verizon also has customers holding onto unlimited data plans, even though it doesn't offer them anymore. The company announced over the summer that it would throttle heavy unlimited data users during peak times, but backed off after receiving widespread criticism, including from the chairman of the FCC.

Unlimited data customers are not as valuable to the companies as those with tiered plans because they will pay the same each month regardless of how much data they use, forever. Data use is predicted to explode to 9.1 gigabytes a month in 2018, from 1.4 gigabytes per month last year, according to Cisco.

Bekim Ukperaj, who works at a golf course in Stamford, Connecticut, and admitted he uses his phone "a lot," said he regularly exceeds five gigabytes of monthly data and is throttled. AT&T said it sent Ukperaj two text messages in January 2013 as he neared the data threshold, and included the throttling notice in his bill in 2011. But Ukperaj said he doesn't remember any notification that he was nearing five gigabytes. He now uses a tool on his LG G2 smartphone to alert him when he's getting close.

"A warning would have been nice in all those previous months I didn't alert myself," Ukperaj said, adding that sometimes his phone was useless for weeks while it was throttled. Ukperaj said that when he renewed his unlimited data contract in December, AT&T representatives didn't warn him that he could be throttled. "You'd think that if you renewed your contract, they'd say something more about the data limiting," Ukperaj said.

AT&T's 4G LTE network typically has download speeds of five to 12 megabits per second (Mbps), according to the FTC. When I was throttled in September, my download speed was cut to a slow 0.17 Mbps, rendering most of the functions on my smartphone useless.

Results of a speedtest while being throttled (left) and before being throttled (right).

"You're looking at data speeds that pretty much predate the smartphone era," Bill Menezes, an analyst who specializes in mobile networks at Gartner, the technology research firm, said when he reviewed the results of the speed test I conducted while being throttled in September.

Frank Guido, a Staten Island, N.Y.-based photographer, was so frustrated with his throttled data speed of 0.46mbps that after dealing with it for only two days he called AT&T and switched to a data plan he now shares with family.

"I'm away from home days at a time for my job so I can't live on Edge speed," he said, referring to the older, slower network.

He was an AT&T unlimited data subscriber who regularly went over five gigabytes a month, though he only first noticed his phone's data connection was slow over the weekend. He said that he has never received a text message or an email telling him he'd get throttled if he went over a certain number of gigabytes.

But after the FTC lawsuit was announced, he called to switch back to his unlimited data plan. Because AT&T no longer offers the plan, his request has to be approved by management. He'll find out in early November if AT&T approved the switch.

Walmart To Kick Off Holiday Shopping Season Day After Halloween

NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart is doing whatever it takes to rope in holiday shoppers however they want to buy.

For the first time, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is offering free shipping on what it considers the season's top 100 hottest gifts, from board games to items related to Disney's hit film "Frozen" items, starting Saturday. The move comes as rival Target Corp. began offering free shipping on all items, a program that started late October and will last through Dec. 20.

Wal-Mart is also planning to offer discounts, or what it refers to as "rollbacks," on more than 20,000 items on a broad range of products, from groceries to TVs, starting Saturday. The timing is similar to last year, but the discounter said the assortment is broader. It's also pulling forward by nearly a month 15 24-hour online deals originally reserved for the Thanksgiving weekend and so-called Cyber Monday, about double from last year. For the first time, Wal-Mart will allow shoppers to pick up those 24-hour online specials at the store. They include 40-inch Element TVs for $199, down from $298, and Crayola Paint Makers for $12, down from $18.88. Customers will be able to purchase the deals online starting shortly after midnight on Monday.

The online deals are in addition to several hundred online holiday specials that start Saturday.

"We're trying to offer the best deals when they want them," said Steve Bratspies, Wal-Mart's executive vice president and general merchandise manager for Wal-Mart's U.S. division.

Wal-Mart unveiled some of the details of its holiday strategy as it considers matching online prices from competitors such as Amazon.com, a move that could help grab more customers but could also hurt profit margins. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based discounter has matched prices of local store competitors but has not followed other retailers including Best Buy and Target in matching prices of online rivals. But last month, Wal-Mart started to test the strategy in five markets: Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dallas; Phoenix; and northwest Arkansas.

Wal-Mart is trying to rev up sluggish sales in the U.S. as it battles competition from online retailers, dollar stores and drugstores. At the same time, it's also dealing with a slowly recovering economy that hasn't benefited its low-income shoppers. As a result, Wal-Mart's U.S. namesake stores, which account for 60 percent of its total business, haven't reported growth in a key sales measure in six straight quarters.

Wal-Mart's move underscores how stores are being forced to step up their game for the holiday shopping season, which accounts for about 20 percent of retail industry's annual sales. The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail trade group, forecasts a 4.1 percent sales increase to $616.9 billion for November and December from last year. But online sales, which are included in the forecast, are expected to increase anywhere from 8 percent to 11 percent.

Wal-Mart declined to say whether it was considering changing its price match policy for just the holidays or permanently. Deisha Barnett, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, says many store managers have matched online prices for customers on a case-by-case basis.

"Taking care of the customers who shop our stores is what we always aim to do," she added.

As for its free shipping holiday program, Wal-Mart said that it had store executives pick the 100 items and that products are guaranteed to arrive before Christmas. Wal-Mart's current policy is that online shoppers have to spend at least $50.

_____

Follow Anne D'Innocenzio at http://www.Twitter.com/adinnocenzio

I Experienced The Dreaded AT&T 'Throttling' Firsthand

Last month, when I was in California for a work trip, my phone suddenly became useless. Even though I was in downtown San Francisco, the data connection was so slow that it was pretty much impossible to download email, use apps, browse the Web or load photos on Instagram.

I was being "throttled." AT&T had deliberately slowed down my data speed because I used more than five gigabytes during a billing cycle, even though I have had an unlimited data plan since 2009. (AT&T no longer offers unlimited data plans, but I have renewed my contract, so I've been allowed to keep it.)

AT&T began throttling in 2011. But the policy was thrust into the spotlight this week, when the Federal Trade Commission sued the telecom giant for slowing data speeds, sometimes by more than 90 percent, for unlimited data customers without "adequately disclos[ing]" the policy.

“AT&T promised its customers ‘unlimited’ data, and in many instances, it has failed to deliver on that promise,” FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “The issue here is simple: ‘unlimited’ means unlimited.”

AT&T shot back, calling the suit "baseless" and pointing to a press release and "2,000" subsequent news articles when the company made the changes in 2011.

"[B]efore any customer is affected, they are also notified by text message," Wayne Watts, AT&T's senior executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement Tuesday.

The FTC said AT&T has throttled 3.5 million customers a total of 25 million times. I'm one of those customers.

Here's the thing. Even though I've gone over five gigabytes in four of the last five months, I've only gotten one text message from AT&T warning me that I was approaching the threshold. That was in May. Last month, my phone slowed without warning.

When I reached out to AT&T about why I only got a text message that first time, and I didn't get a text message each time I approached five gigabytes in a month, the company pointed to an obscure page on its website informing customers that their "speeds may be reduced without another text message reminder."

The company also said I had received a notice with my bill in summer 2011 announcing the changes. But as the FTC points out in its lawsuit, the notice doesn't "disclose the degree to which the customers’ data speed would be reduced,
and the impact that the reduced speed would have on customers’ ability to use their device."

"We stand by the statement from earlier this week," Mark Siegel, AT&T's executive director of media relations, told The Huffington Post in a phone call. "And we stand by what is available on our public website about how we handle our unlimited data customers."

AT&T could easily send texts each time customers approach the five gigabyte threshold. After all, the company sends texts when your bill is due, when it's paid, if you are going over your voice minutes and when it's added a cell tower in your area. Or it could send an email. I've received at least seven emails from AT&T this month, five for promotions or trying to get me to upgrade.

But throttling is something AT&T appears to want to keep quiet. Researchers hired by the company to conduct focus groups about throttling suggested not talking too much about it, according to the FTC lawsuit.

From the FTC lawsuit:

The researchers observed that “[t]he more consumers talked about it the more they didn’t like it.” This led the researchers to advise that “[s]aying less is more, [so] don’t say too much” in marketing communications concerning such a program.

AT&T says it throttles customers to manage network congestion. But the FTC says throttling happens even when the network isn't congested. AT&T doesn't throttle those people on its other data plans who use significant amounts of data, the FTC says in the lawsuit.

AT&T seems to use throttling to encourage unlimited data customers to sign up for tiered data plans, which make them pay for as much data as they use and can be more expensive for heavy users. Those who quit AT&T's unlimited data plans, the FTC points out, have been hit with early termination fees in the hundreds of dollars.

Verizon also has customers holding onto unlimited data plans, even though it doesn't offer them anymore. The company announced over the summer that it would throttle heavy unlimited data users during peak times, but backed off after receiving widespread criticism, including from the chairman of the FCC.

Unlimited data customers are not as valuable to the companies as those with tiered plans because they will pay the same each month regardless of how much data they use, forever. Data use is predicted to explode to 9.1 gigabytes a month in 2018, from 1.4 gigabytes per month last year, according to Cisco.

Bekim Ukperaj, who works at a golf course in Stamford, Connecticut, and admitted he uses his phone "a lot," said he regularly exceeds five gigabytes of monthly data and is throttled. AT&T said it sent Ukperaj two text messages in January 2013 as he neared the data threshold, and included the throttling notice in his bill in 2011. But Ukperaj said he doesn't remember any notification that he was nearing five gigabytes. He now uses a tool on his LG G2 smartphone to alert him when he's getting close.

"A warning would have been nice in all those previous months I didn't alert myself," Ukperaj said, adding that sometimes his phone was useless for weeks while it was throttled. Ukperaj said that when he renewed his unlimited data contract in December, AT&T representatives didn't warn him that he could be throttled. "You'd think that if you renewed your contract, they'd say something more about the data limiting," Ukperaj said.

AT&T's 4G LTE network typically has download speeds of five to 12 megabits per second (Mbps), according to the FTC. When I was throttled in September, my download speed was cut to a slow 0.17 Mbps, rendering most of the functions on my smartphone useless.

Results of a speedtest while being throttled (left) and before being throttled (right).

"You're looking at data speeds that pretty much predate the smartphone era," Bill Menezes, an analyst who specializes in mobile networks at Gartner, the technology research firm, said when he reviewed the results of the speed test I conducted while being throttled in September.

Frank Guido, a Staten Island, N.Y.-based photographer, was so frustrated with his throttled data speed of 0.46mbps that after dealing with it for only two days he called AT&T and switched to a data plan he now shares with family.

"I'm away from home days at a time for my job so I can't live on Edge speed," he said, referring to the older, slower network.

He was an AT&T unlimited data subscriber who regularly went over five gigabytes a month, though he only first noticed his phone's data connection was slow over the weekend. He said that he has never received a text message or an email telling him he'd get throttled if he went over a certain number of gigabytes.

But after the FTC lawsuit was announced, he called to switch back to his unlimited data plan. Because AT&T no longer offers the plan, his request has to be approved by management. He'll find out in early November if AT&T approved the switch.