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Tag Archives: Provider
Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider are worthless, analysis shows | Carbon offsetting
The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation.
The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.
The analysis raises questions over the credits bought by a number of internationally renowned companies – some of them have labelled their products “carbon neutral”, or have told their consumers they can fly, buy new clothes or eat certain foods without making the climate crisis worse.
But doubts have been raised repeatedly over whether they are really effective.
The nine-month investigation has been undertaken by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and SourceMaterial, a non-profit investigative journalism organisation. It is based on new analysis of scientific studies of Verra’s rainforest schemes.
It has also drawn on dozens of interviews and on-the-ground reporting with scientists, industry insiders and Indigenous communities. The findings – which have been strongly disputed by Verra – are likely to pose serious questions for companies that are depending on offsets as part of their net zero strategies.
Verra, which is based in Washington DC, operates a number of leading environmental standards for climate action and sustainable development, including its voluntary carbon standard (VCS) that has issued more than 1bn carbon credits. It approves three-quarters of all voluntary offsets. Its rainforest protection programme makes up 40% of the credits it approves and was launched before the Paris agreement with the aim of generating revenue for protecting ecosystems.
Verra argues that the conclusions reached by the studies are incorrect, and questions their methodology. And they point out that their work since 2009 has allowed billions of dollars to be channelled to the vital work of preserving forests.
The investigation found that:
-
Only a handful of Verra’s rainforest projects showed evidence of deforestation reductions, according to two studies, with further analysis indicating that 94% of the credits had no benefit to the climate.
-
The threat to forests had been overstated by about 400% on average for Verra projects, according to analysis of a 2022 University of Cambridge study.
-
Gucci, Salesforce, BHP, Shell, easyJet, Leon and the band Pearl Jam were among dozens of companies and organisations that have bought rainforest offsets approved by Verra for environmental claims.
-
Human rights issues are a serious concern in at least one of the offsetting projects. The Guardian visited a flagship project in Peru, and was shown videos that residents said showed their homes being cut down with chainsaws and ropes by park guards and police. They spoke of forced evictions and tensions with park authorities.
The analysis: “It’s disappointing and scary”
To assess the credits, a team of journalists analysed the findings of three scientific studies that used satellite images to check the results of a number of forest offsetting projects, known as Redd+ schemes. Although a number of studies have looked at offsets, these are the only three known to have attempted to apply rigorous scientific methods to measuring avoided deforestation.
The organisations that set up and run these projects produce their own forecasts of how much deforestation they will stop, using Verra’s rules. The predictions are assessed by a Verra-approved third party, and if accepted are then used to generate the credits that companies can buy and use to offset their own carbon emissions.
For example, if an organisation estimates its project will stop 100 hectares (247 acres) of deforestation, it can use a Verra-approved formula to convert that into 40,000 CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) of saved carbon emissions in a dense tropical forest if no deforestation takes place, although the formula varies according to habitat and other factors. Those saved emissions can then be bought by a company and applied to its own carbon reduction targets.
Two different groups of scientists – one internationally based, the other from Cambridge in the UK – looked at a total of about two-thirds of 87 Verra-approved active projects. A number were left out by the researchers when they felt there was not enough information available to fairly assess them.
The two studies from the international group of researchers found just eight out of 29 Verra-approved projects where further analysis was possible showed evidence of meaningful deforestation reductions.
The journalists were able to do further analysis on those projects, comparing the estimates made by the offsetting projects with the results obtained by the scientists. The analysis indicated about 94% of the credits the projects produced should not have been approved.
Credits from 21 projects had no climate benefit, seven had between 98% and 52% fewer than claimed using Verra’s system, and one had 80% more impact, the investigation found.
Separately, the study by the University of Cambridge team of 40 Verra projects found that while a number had stopped some deforestation, the areas were extremely small. Just four projects were responsible for three-quarters of the total forest that was protected.
The journalists again analysed these results more closely and found that, in 32 projects where it was possible to compare Verra’s claims with the study finding, baseline scenarios of forest loss appeared to be overstated by about 400%. Three projects in Madagascar have achieved excellent results and have a significant impact on the figures. If those projects are not included, the average inflation is about 950%.
The studies used different methods and time periods, looked at different ranges of projects, and the researchers said no modelling approach is ever perfect, acknowledging limitations in each study. However, the data showed broad agreement on the lack of effectiveness of the projects compared with the Verra-approved predictions.
Two of the studies have passed the peer review process and another has been released as a preprint.
However, Verra strongly disputed the studies’ conclusions about its rainforest projects and said the methods the scientists used cannot capture the true impact on the ground, which explains the difference between the credits it approves and the emission reductions estimated by scientists.
The carbon standard said its projects faced unique local threats that a standardised approach cannot measure, and it works with leading experts to continuously update its methodologies and make sure they reflect scientific consensus. It has shortened the time period in which projects must update the threats they face to better capture unforeseen drivers, such as the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Verra said it already used some of the methods deployed by the researchers in its own standards, but does not believe they are appropriate for this project type.
Verra was specifically concerned with the use of “synthetic controls”, where the international group picked comparable areas and used them as a basis for deforestation measurements. Verra felt this was problematic because the controls might not reflect pre-project conditions, and also would compare the project with a hypothetical scenario rather than a “real area, as Verra does”. But the study authors argue that this mischaracterises their work: the comparison areas used in both cases are real areas, with deforestation levels based on rates that are local to the projects. The Cambridge group does not use synthetic controls.
“I have worked as an auditor on these projects in the Brazilian Amazon and when I started this analysis, I wanted to know if we could trust their predictions about deforestation. The evidence from the analysis – not just the synthetic controls – suggests we cannot. I want this system to work to protect rainforests. For that to happen, we need to acknowledge the scale of problems with the current system,” said Thales West, a lead author on the studies by the international group.
Erin Sills, a co-author in the international group and a professor at North Carolina State University, said the findings were “disappointing and scary”. She was one of several researchers who said urgent changes were needed to finance rainforest conservation.
“I’d like to find that conserving forests, which conserves biodiversity, and conserves local ecosystem services, also has a real effective impact on reducing climate change. If it doesn’t, it’s scary, because it’s a little bit less hope for reducing climate change.”
David Coomes, a professor of forest ecology at the University of Cambridge who was a senior author on a study looking at avoided deforestation in the first five years of 40 Verra schemes, was part of the Cambridge group of researchers. He reviewed the Guardian’s findings and said there was a big gap between the amount of deforestation his team estimated the projects were avoiding and what the carbon standard was approving.
“It’s safe to say there are strong discrepancies between what we’re calculating and what exists in their databases, and that is a matter for concern and further investigation. I think in the longer term, what we want is a consensus set of methods which are applied across all sites,” he said.
Julia Jones, a co-author and professor at Bangor University, said the world was at a crossroads when it came to protecting tropical forests and must urgently correct the system for measuring emission reductions if carbon markets are to be scaled up.
“It’s really not rocket science,” she said. “We are at an absolutely critical place for the future of tropical forests. If we don’t learn from the failures of the last decade or so, then there’s a very large risk that investors, private individuals and others will move away from any kind of willingness to pay to avoid tropical deforestation and that would be a disaster.
“As someone who sits outside of the kind of cut and thrust of the wild west that is the carbon markets, I need to believe it can be made to work because money is needed to fund the emissions reductions from forest conservation.”
Yadvinder Singh Malhi, a professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford and a Jackson senior research fellow at Oriel College, Oxford, who was not involved in the study, said two of his PhD students had gone through the analysis without spotting any errors.
“This work highlights the main challenge with realising climate change mitigation benefits from Redd+. The challenge isn’t around measuring carbon stocks; it’s about reliably forecasting the future, what would have happened in the absence of the Redd+ activity. And peering into the future is a dark and messy art in a world of complex societies, politics and economics. The report shows that these future forecasts have been overly pessimistic in terms of baseline deforestation rates, and hence have vastly overstated their Redd+ climate benefits. Many of these projects may have brought lots of benefits in terms of biodiversity conservation capacity and local communities, but the impacts on climate change on which they are premised are regrettably much weaker than hoped. I wish it were otherwise, but this report is pretty compelling.”
Shell told the Guardian that using credits was “in line with our philosophy of avoid, reduce and only then mitigate emissions”. Gucci, Pearl Jam, BHP and Salesforce did not comment, while Lavazza said it bought credits that were certified by Verra, “a world’s leading certification organisation”, as part of the coffee products company’s “serious, concrete and diligent commitment to reduce” its carbon footprint. It plans to look more closely into the project.
The fast food chain Leon no longer buys carbon offsets from one of the projects in the studies, as part of its mission to maximise its positive impact. EasyJet has moved away from carbon offsetting to focus its net zero work on projects such as “funding for the development of new zero-carbon emission aircraft technology”.
Barbara Haya, the director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, has been researching carbon credits for 20 years, hoping to find a way to make the system function. She said: “The implications of this analysis are huge. Companies are using credits to make claims of reducing emissions when most of these credits don’t represent emissions reductions at all.
“Rainforest protection credits are the most common type on the market at the moment. And it’s exploding, so these findings really matter. But these problems are not just limited to this credit type. These problems exist with nearly every kind of credit.
“One strategy to improve the market is to show what the problems are and really force the registries to tighten up their rules so that the market could be trusted. But I’m starting to give up on that. I started studying carbon offsets 20 years ago studying problems with protocols and programs. Here I am, 20 years later having the same conversation. We need an alternative process. The offset market is broken.”
Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features
Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider are worthless, analysis shows | Carbon offsetting
The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation.
The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.
The analysis raises questions over the credits bought by a number of internationally renowned companies – some of them have labelled their products “carbon neutral”, or have told their consumers they can fly, buy new clothes or eat certain foods without making the climate crisis worse.
But doubts have been raised repeatedly over whether they are really effective.
The nine-month investigation has been undertaken by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and SourceMaterial, a non-profit investigative journalism organisation. It is based on new analysis of scientific studies of Verra’s rainforest schemes.
It has also drawn on dozens of interviews and on-the-ground reporting with scientists, industry insiders and Indigenous communities. The findings – which have been strongly disputed by Verra – are likely to pose serious questions for companies that are depending on offsets as part of their net zero strategies.
Verra, which is based in Washington DC, operates a number of leading environmental standards for climate action and sustainable development, including its voluntary carbon standard (VCS) that has issued more than 1bn carbon credits. It approves three-quarters of all voluntary offsets. Its rainforest protection programme makes up 40% of the credits it approves and was launched before the Paris agreement with the aim of generating revenue for protecting ecosystems.
Verra argues that the conclusions reached by the studies are incorrect, and questions their methodology. And they point out that their work since 2009 has allowed billions of dollars to be channelled to the vital work of preserving forests.
The investigation found that:
-
Only a handful of Verra’s rainforest projects showed evidence of deforestation reductions, according to two studies, with further analysis indicating that 94% of the credits had no benefit to the climate.
-
The threat to forests had been overstated by about 400% on average for Verra projects, according to analysis of a 2022 University of Cambridge study.
-
Gucci, Salesforce, BHP, Shell, easyJet, Leon and the band Pearl Jam were among dozens of companies and organisations that have bought rainforest offsets approved by Verra for environmental claims.
-
Human rights issues are a serious concern in at least one of the offsetting projects. The Guardian visited a flagship project in Peru, and was shown videos that residents said showed their homes being cut down with chainsaws and ropes by park guards and police. They spoke of forced evictions and tensions with park authorities.
The analysis: “It’s disappointing and scary”
To assess the credits, a team of journalists analysed the findings of three scientific studies that used satellite images to check the results of a number of forest offsetting projects, known as Redd+ schemes. Although a number of studies have looked at offsets, these are the only three known to have attempted to apply rigorous scientific methods to measuring avoided deforestation.
The organisations that set up and run these projects produce their own forecasts of how much deforestation they will stop, using Verra’s rules. The predictions are assessed by a Verra-approved third party, and if accepted are then used to generate the credits that companies can buy and use to offset their own carbon emissions.
For example, if an organisation estimates its project will stop 100 hectares (247 acres) of deforestation, it can use a Verra-approved formula to convert that into 40,000 CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) of saved carbon emissions in a dense tropical forest if no deforestation takes place, although the formula varies according to habitat and other factors. Those saved emissions can then be bought by a company and applied to its own carbon reduction targets.
Two different groups of scientists – one internationally based, the other from Cambridge in the UK – looked at a total of about two-thirds of 87 Verra-approved active projects. A number were left out by the researchers when they felt there was not enough information available to fairly assess them.
The two studies from the international group of researchers found just eight out of 29 Verra-approved projects where further analysis was possible showed evidence of meaningful deforestation reductions.
The journalists were able to do further analysis on those projects, comparing the estimates made by the offsetting projects with the results obtained by the scientists. The analysis indicated about 94% of the credits the projects produced should not have been approved.
Credits from 21 projects had no climate benefit, seven had between 98% and 52% fewer than claimed using Verra’s system, and one had 80% more impact, the investigation found.
Separately, the study by the University of Cambridge team of 40 Verra projects found that while a number had stopped some deforestation, the areas were extremely small. Just four projects were responsible for three-quarters of the total forest that was protected.
The journalists again analysed these results more closely and found that, in 32 projects where it was possible to compare Verra’s claims with the study finding, baseline scenarios of forest loss appeared to be overstated by about 400%. Three projects in Madagascar have achieved excellent results and have a significant impact on the figures. If those projects are not included, the average inflation is about 950%.
The studies used different methods and time periods, looked at different ranges of projects, and the researchers said no modelling approach is ever perfect, acknowledging limitations in each study. However, the data showed broad agreement on the lack of effectiveness of the projects compared with the Verra-approved predictions.
Two of the studies have passed the peer review process and another has been released as a preprint.
However, Verra strongly disputed the studies’ conclusions about its rainforest projects and said the methods the scientists used cannot capture the true impact on the ground, which explains the difference between the credits it approves and the emission reductions estimated by scientists.
The carbon standard said its projects faced unique local threats that a standardised approach cannot measure, and it works with leading experts to continuously update its methodologies and make sure they reflect scientific consensus. It has shortened the time period in which projects must update the threats they face to better capture unforeseen drivers, such as the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Verra said it already used some of the methods deployed by the researchers in its own standards, but does not believe they are appropriate for this project type.
Verra was specifically concerned with the use of “synthetic controls”, where the international group picked comparable areas and used them as a basis for deforestation measurements. Verra felt this was problematic because the controls might not reflect pre-project conditions, and also would compare the project with a hypothetical scenario rather than a “real area, as Verra does”. But the study authors argue that this mischaracterises their work: the comparison areas used in both cases are real areas, with deforestation levels based on rates that are local to the projects. The Cambridge group does not use synthetic controls.
“I have worked as an auditor on these projects in the Brazilian Amazon and when I started this analysis, I wanted to know if we could trust their predictions about deforestation. The evidence from the analysis – not just the synthetic controls – suggests we cannot. I want this system to work to protect rainforests. For that to happen, we need to acknowledge the scale of problems with the current system,” said Thales West, a lead author on the studies by the international group.
Erin Sills, a co-author in the international group and a professor at North Carolina State University, said the findings were “disappointing and scary”. She was one of several researchers who said urgent changes were needed to finance rainforest conservation.
“I’d like to find that conserving forests, which conserves biodiversity, and conserves local ecosystem services, also has a real effective impact on reducing climate change. If it doesn’t, it’s scary, because it’s a little bit less hope for reducing climate change.”
David Coomes, a professor of forest ecology at the University of Cambridge who was a senior author on a study looking at avoided deforestation in the first five years of 40 Verra schemes, was part of the Cambridge group of researchers. He reviewed the Guardian’s findings and said there was a big gap between the amount of deforestation his team estimated the projects were avoiding and what the carbon standard was approving.
“It’s safe to say there are strong discrepancies between what we’re calculating and what exists in their databases, and that is a matter for concern and further investigation. I think in the longer term, what we want is a consensus set of methods which are applied across all sites,” he said.
Julia Jones, a co-author and professor at Bangor University, said the world was at a crossroads when it came to protecting tropical forests and must urgently correct the system for measuring emission reductions if carbon markets are to be scaled up.
“It’s really not rocket science,” she said. “We are at an absolutely critical place for the future of tropical forests. If we don’t learn from the failures of the last decade or so, then there’s a very large risk that investors, private individuals and others will move away from any kind of willingness to pay to avoid tropical deforestation and that would be a disaster.
“As someone who sits outside of the kind of cut and thrust of the wild west that is the carbon markets, I need to believe it can be made to work because money is needed to fund the emissions reductions from forest conservation.”
Yadvinder Singh Malhi, a professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford and a Jackson senior research fellow at Oriel College, Oxford, who was not involved in the study, said two of his PhD students had gone through the analysis without spotting any errors.
“This work highlights the main challenge with realising climate change mitigation benefits from Redd+. The challenge isn’t around measuring carbon stocks; it’s about reliably forecasting the future, what would have happened in the absence of the Redd+ activity. And peering into the future is a dark and messy art in a world of complex societies, politics and economics. The report shows that these future forecasts have been overly pessimistic in terms of baseline deforestation rates, and hence have vastly overstated their Redd+ climate benefits. Many of these projects may have brought lots of benefits in terms of biodiversity conservation capacity and local communities, but the impacts on climate change on which they are premised are regrettably much weaker than hoped. I wish it were otherwise, but this report is pretty compelling.”
Shell told the Guardian that using credits was “in line with our philosophy of avoid, reduce and only then mitigate emissions”. Gucci, Pearl Jam, BHP and Salesforce did not comment, while Lavazza said it bought credits that were certified by Verra, “a world’s leading certification organisation”, as part of the coffee products company’s “serious, concrete and diligent commitment to reduce” its carbon footprint. It plans to look more closely into the project.
The fast food chain Leon no longer buys carbon offsets from one of the projects in the studies, as part of its mission to maximise its positive impact. EasyJet has moved away from carbon offsetting to focus its net zero work on projects such as “funding for the development of new zero-carbon emission aircraft technology”.
Barbara Haya, the director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, has been researching carbon credits for 20 years, hoping to find a way to make the system function. She said: “The implications of this analysis are huge. Companies are using credits to make claims of reducing emissions when most of these credits don’t represent emissions reductions at all.
“Rainforest protection credits are the most common type on the market at the moment. And it’s exploding, so these findings really matter. But these problems are not just limited to this credit type. These problems exist with nearly every kind of credit.
“One strategy to improve the market is to show what the problems are and really force the registries to tighten up their rules so that the market could be trusted. But I’m starting to give up on that. I started studying carbon offsets 20 years ago studying problems with protocols and programs. Here I am, 20 years later having the same conversation. We need an alternative process. The offset market is broken.”
Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features
KeyBank customer info taken by hackers of third-party provider
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KeyBank mortgage customers had their personal data stolen in a hack of the bank’s third-party provider.
The data stolen included Social Security numbers, addresses and account numbers of home mortgage holders at KeyBank in the breach of a third-party vendor that serves multiple corporate clients.
The hack took place on July 5 after breaking into computers at the insurance services provider Overby-Seawell Company, according to a letter that Cleveland-based KeyBank sent to affected residential mortgage customers.
KeyBank operates in 15 states and has close to $200 billion in assets.
IRS ADMITS IT EXPOSED CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION OF 120,000 TAXPAYERS ONLINE
In this photo illustration of the TradingView stock market chart of KeyCorp displayed on a smartphone with the logo in the background. ((Photo Illustration by Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) / Getty Images)
The bank did not reveal how many customers were affected.
Overby-Seawell did not respond to phone messages and emails sent to executives by Associated Press seeking comment.
The bank did not reveal how many customers were affected. (iStock / iStock)
APPLE SECURITY ISSUE: HOW TO UPDATE YOUR IPHONE, IPAD, MAC
In the statement sent Friday to The Associated Press, KeyBank said Kennesaw, Georgia-based Overby-Seawell “suffered a cybersecurity incident that compromised data of its corporate clients.” It did not elaborate.
In this photo illustration the KeyBank logo of an US retail banking company is seen on a smartphone and a pc screen. ((Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) / Getty Images)
Overby-Seawell is a subsidiary of the Breckenridge Group.
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“We take this matter very seriously and have notified all affected individuals,” KeyBank said in a letter.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Germany Takes a Stake in Struggling Gas Provider Uniper
With the entry of the German government, the stake held by Uniper’s largest shareholder, a Finnish energy company called Fortum, will drop from 80 percent to 56 percent. Fortum had granted Uniper €8 billion in support and loan guarantees and the Finnish government, which holds the majority stake in Fortum, had refused to provide further support.
“The German government is making shareholders, including Fortum, take some of the pain,” said Deepa Venkateswaran, a utility analyst at Bernstein, a research firm. She estimated that Uniper is losing €55 million a day.
For decades, Uniper bought most of its gas from Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned supplier, and sold it to German factories and municipalities. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Gazprom has broken its long-term contracts and begun reducing the amount of gas it provides to Europe, leaving Uniper to buy gas from other providers at higher prices.
Uniper has been in talks with the government for weeks and made a formal request for help on July 8. The company has sought to portray itself as a vital cog in Germany’s energy system that was worth rescuing, not only as a leading importer of natural gas that it sells to dozens of municipalities and companies, but also because of its work with the government to build one of the country’s first terminals for receiving liquefied natural gas.
That effort should allow Germany to import fuel from a variety of sources, including the United States, easing its dependence on Russia. Before the Feb. 24 invasion, Russia provided Germany with 55 percent of its natural gas supply. In the weeks immediately after, it was able to reduce that dependence by roughly 20 percent.
Uniper is also taking steps to develop hydrogen, which is touted as the clean energy fuel of the future. “I’m pleased and relieved that today’s agreement stabilizes Uniper financially as a system-critical energy partner,” Mr. Maubach said.
Germany’s government is encouraging consumers to conserve energy. It is also replacing gas-fired generators with plants fired by coal and lignite — both of which expel more climate-warming emissions — in an effort to save more gas for heating homes and powering factories.
Amazon buys US medical provider as it cements move into healthcare | Amazon
Amazon will acquire the primary care organization One Medical in a deal valued roughly at $3.9bn, marking another expansion for the retailer into healthcare services.
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant said in a statement Thursday it is buying One Medical for $18 a share in an all-cash transaction. It’s one of Amazon’s biggest acquisitions, following its $13.7bn deal to buy Whole Foods in 2017 and its $8.5bn purchase of Hollywood studio MGM, which closed earlier this year.
One Medical, whose parent company is the San Francisco based 1Life Healthcare, Inc, is a membership-based service that offers virtual care as well as in-person visits. It also works with more than 8,000 companies to provide its health benefits to employees.
As of March, One Medical had about 767,000 members and 188 medical offices in 25 markets, according to its first-quarter earnings report, which also showed the company had incurred a net loss of $90.9m after pulling in $254.1m in revenue. The total deal value announced Thursday includes One Medical’s debt.
Neil Lindsay, the senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, said in a statement the acquisition is geared toward reinventing the healthcare “experience“ for things like booking an appointment and taking trips to the pharmacy.
“We love inventing to make what should be easy easier and we want to be one of the companies that helps dramatically improve the healthcare experience over the next several years,” Lindsay said.
Overall, consumer demand for telemedicine and virtual health care care visits exploded during the Covid-19 pandemic. Healthcare bill payers like employers and insurers are also becoming more focused on improving access to patient care and making sure their patients stay tuned in to their health, see their doctors regularly and take their prescriptions.
Healthcare costs have risen faster than wages and inflation for years and represent a huge expense to employers that offer coverage. Employers and insurers think that by connecting people to regular care, they can prevent expensive hospital stays from happening or keep chronic conditions like diabetes from leading to bigger problems.
For Amazon, the acquisition deepens its foray into healthcare services, the latest industry the company has sought to disrupt. In 2018, it bought the online pharmacy PillPack for $750m before opening its own online drug store that allows customers to order medication or prescription refills and have them delivered to their front door in a couple of days. And last year, it began offering its Amazon Care telemedicine program to employers nationwide.
Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail, said it is unsurprising Amazon is expanding its footprint in healthcare. The company’s retail and cloud-computing businesses are becoming more mature and it’s looking to find new opportunities for growth, Saunders said. Healthcare, which is complex but extremely lucrative, is an attractive option. But making a big splash isn’t always easy.
“Amazon will need to work extremely hard and be extremely innovative if it is to do more than shake things up a little at the margins,” Saunders said in a statement. “Based on past form, the jury is out as to whether Amazon can actually achieve this. As much as it has made some inroads in online pharmacy, it has not revolutionized the market. Nor did its acquisition of Whole Foods – the biggest deal in its history – lead to major disruption.”
The deal comes as Amazon and other big tech companies face scrutiny from lawmakers over their market power. Shortly after the company’s announcement on Thursday, critics called for US regulators to block the purchase arguing it endangers privacy.
“Amazon’s takeover of One Medical is the latest shot in a terrifying new stage in the business model of the world’s largest corporations,” said Barry Lynn, the executive director of Open Markets Institute, an organization that advocates for stricter antitrust regulation. “The deal will expand Amazon’s ability to collect the most intimate and personal of information about individuals, in order to track, target, manipulate and exploit people in ever more intrusive ways.”
During the pandemic, One Medical faced a congressional investigation following reports the company flouted guidelines for Covid-19 vaccines. The investigation concluded in December the company had taken advantage of “its access to scarce coronavirus vaccines to promote the company’s business interests” and push vaccine seekers toward paying for its memberships. It also said the company and its employees prioritized vaccinations for family and friends.
In afternoon trading, shares of 1Life Healthcare surged 69% to $17.17. Amazon added less than 1% to $123.75.
The deal is subject to regulatory approval. On completion, Amazon said One Medical’s CEO Amir Dan Rubin will remain in his position.
Key U.S. provider of Internet to Russia cuts service there, citing ‘unprovoked invasion of Ukraine’
“Our goal is not to hurt anyone. It’s just to not empower the Russian government to have another tool in their war chest,” Schaeffer said in an interview with The Washington Post.
Cogent, based in Washington, D.C., is one of the world’s largest providers of what’s known as Internet backbone — roughly comparable to the interstate highway system, providing the primary conduit for data flows that local companies then route to individual domains. Schaeffer said Cogent’s networks carry about one-quarter of the world’s Internet traffic. Cogent has several dozen customers in Russia, with many of them, such as state-owned telecommunications giant Rostelecom, being close to the government.
Russia, like most nations, is connected to the world by several backbone providers, but Cogent is among its largest. The company began terminating its Russian companies at noon Friday but was doing so gradually. Some customers asked for a delay of up to several days while they found other Internet sources, Schaeffer said, and the company is trying to accommodate those requests.
“We’re pretty confident that we’re not interfering with anyone’s ability to get some information,” he said, though he acknowledged the likelihood of slowdowns and other disruptions with Russia.
In a letter sent Thursday to one of Cogent’s Russian customers and obtained by The Washington Post, the company wrote, “In light of the unwarranted and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Cogent is terminating all of your services effective at 5 p.m. GMT on March 4, 2022. The economic sanctions put in place as a result of the invasion and the increasingly uncertain security situation make it impossible for Cogent to continue to provide you with service. All Cogent-provided ports and IP address space will be reclaimed as of the termination date.”
Ukrainian officials have been lobbying American Internet companies to cut off services from Russia and also asked ICANN, the California-based nonprofit group that oversees aspect of Internet functionality worldwide, to suspend the main Russian Internet domain, .ru. On Wednesday, ICANN rejected the request.
While Ukraine’s calls for curbs on online sources to Russian government propaganda have generated wide sympathy and some action by key American companies, the effort to cut off Russia from the Internet overall has generated significant backlash from digital rights advocates. They argue that isolating Russians from online services — and especially social media — deprives them of access to information about the war in Ukraine, leaving government-controlled media as the only source of news.
“This move by Cogent is misguided. Cutting the Russian people off from the global internet harms those who seek to obtain and share truth,” tweeted Rebecca MacKinnon, vice president at the foundation that hosts Wikipedia. “Including many Wikpedians contributing to the page about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite govt threats.”
News of the looming Cogent action began spreading on Thursday after Mikhail Klimarev, executive director of the Internet Protection Society, which advocates for digital freedoms in Russia, posted a copy of Cogent’s termination letter to a Russian client to his Telegram channel.
“Very bad news,” Klimarev wrote in his Telegram post. “I will be glad if it is not confirmed.”
But soon it was. Telecommunications analysts were closely tracking events on Friday to see how extensively Cogent’s action was affecting Internet service in Russia. Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis for the Web monitoring firm Kentik, wrote in a blog post, “A backbone carrier disconnecting its customers in a country the size of Russia is without precedent in the history of the internet.”
Other U.S. backbone providers have been debating cutting off Russian customers in recent days, and any following Cogent’s lead would amplify the impact.
Lumen Technologies, another major connection for Rostelecom, declined to say whether it might do so. But it said it was not taking on new Russian business.
“Lumen has stopped the sale of all new products and services to both Russian-based companies and non-Russian based companies where the services will be provided in Russia,” the company said, adding that it had terminated a deal to provide services to one Russian financial institution.
Network security researcher Barrett Lyon said Cogent’s move alone would immediately affect traffic from North America, causing connections across the Atlantic to lag, especially in video. Russians trying to watch streaming video from the United States are expected to see the deterioration first.
“Cogent is usually seen as a lower-cost network option. As a result, they end up carrying a lot of traffic for video and low-cost packets,” Lyon said. “That traffic will reconverge to other networks and redistribute, causing a huge network load across networks willing to carry traffic for Rostelecom.”
As of Friday morning, Cogent had direct connections to more than 6,000 network blocks, or large chunks of Internet addresses, handled by Rostelecom, one of the largest swaths from the United States.
Earlier on Friday, as Rostelecom announced its fourth-quarter earnings, it said it would hold off on projecting future results because of the uncertainty sparked by the Ukraine conflict.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Right-Wing One America News Network Dropped From Biggest TV Provider
- DirecTV is dropping One America News from its service, a spokesperson for the TV provider confirmed.
- DirecTV is the network’s biggest distributor and has aired the right-wing news channel since April 2017.
- OAN became known for being pro-Trump and spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and the 2020 election.
DirecTV is dropping conservative media channel One America News Network from its selection of channels, a DirecTV spokesperson confirmed to Insider.
The satellite television provider is the network’s biggest distributor and has aired the right-wing news channel since April 2017.
The provider is also dropping OAN’s sister network — A Wealth of Entertainment — which are both subsidiaries of Herring Networks.
“We informed Herring Networks that, following a routine internal review, we do not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement expires,” a DirecTV spokesperson told Insider over email.
Bloomberg first reported Friday that DirecTV would not renew its contract with Herring Networks after April. One America News also appears on TV provider Verizon Fios, online
streaming
service KlowdTV, and other smaller distributors, according to the network’s website.
OAN’s YouTube channel was suspended in November 2020 for spreading misinformation on COVID-19, according to CBS News.
The network became known for being pro-Trump and spreading misinformation, particularly on the election and the ongoing pandemic.
Former President Donald Trump once called the channel one of his favorites, according to Bloomberg, and tweeted about it in 2020: “This is why @FoxNews daytime and weekend daytime have lost their ratings… Many great alternatives are forming & exist. Try @OANN & @newsmax, among others!”
OANN and AWE did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
State issues cease-and-desist, $207,000 fine to widely-used COVID testing provider
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The state Health Department has ordered Embry Health to stop conducting COVID testing in Hawaii ― including at Kahala Mall and several parks ― because it does not have the proper authorizations or approvals to do so.
The company was also fined $207,000 ― $1,000 for each day it operated in the state.
The enforcement action comes after weeks of discussions with the provider, which was conducting tests up until Friday and said it planned to fight to resume operations.
DOH, meanwhile, says there was no evidence the tests were putting anyone at risk.
The agency said people who got tested through Embry Health should contact their physician for guidance on whether they should seek testing through another provider.
The company has been reporting the results of the 4,200 tests it conducted to the state.
Embry Health has been operating COVID testing collection depots on Oahu and Hawaii Island, including at Kahala Mall, Kaimana Beach Hotel, Mauna Kea Beach Resort, the Patsy T. Mink Central Oahu Regional Park, and Wahiawa and Waipahu district parks.
The site at Kahala Mall now has a hand written sign on the door notifying people that it was closed.
The company, based in Phoenix, launched in Hawaii in September and sent specimens to an out-of-state lab. After learning Embry Health was conducting tests, the state said it made repeated attempts to work with the company to get the necessary certification or approval.
But on Oct. 19, Embry Health withdrew its application for certification.
“Quite out of the blue they sent us an email saying they wanted to withdraw their application as a collecting depot. It took us a bit by surprise,” said Keith Ridley, of the Health Department.
Raymond Embry, CEO of the company, blamed the certification issues on “extremely confusing” regulations in Hawaii. “Our organization is an organization of health care providers,” he said.
“We need to ensure that every person has access to zero cost, safe, reliable COVID-19 testing. That’s what our mission is all about and we’re going to do everything possible to get operations reopened in Hawaii as soon as possible.”
The city had invited Embry Health to operate at parks because of a high need for testing, but has since rescinded their permits.
“It is greatly disappointing Embry Health did not follow through on its end of the permit and comply with the Hawaii Department of Health regulations,” said Hiro Toiya, director of the city Department of Emergency Management.
For other testing sites on Oahu, click here.
The Health Department said both collection depots and labs are regulated by state and federal laws. The state said Embry Health can’t re-open in Hawaii until it gets the proper certifications.
“Testing is an important tool in our fight against the pandemic,” said Health Director Dr. Libby Char, in a news release. “It is critical that all individuals seeking testing in Hawaii can trust the results they receive.”
Copyright 2021 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
Anti-Abortion Whistleblowing Site Gets New Home With Provider Known for Hosting Extremists
An online whistleblower portal created to punish anyone providing abortion services in Texas has suffered another defeat in its quest to enforce the state’s new six-week abortion ban as it was forced to disable the function allowing it to collect anonymous tips.
The site, created by the evangelical group Texas Right to Life, had gotten the boot from hosting provider GoDaddy on Friday, but it had found a new home alongside neo-Nazis and white supremacists on Saturday. That’s when Epik, a provider known for hosting right-wing extremist groups, welcomed ProLifeWhistleblower.com to its client roster, according to domain registration data cited by Ars Technica.
By Saturday night, however, even Epik apparently saw the need to impose limits on what ProLifeWhistlerblower.com was doing.
“We received complaints about the site,” a representative said in a statement late Saturday, noting that the site had “violated Epik’s Terms of Use.”
“We contacted the owner of the domain, who agreed to disable the collection of user submissions on this domain,” the statement said.
It was not immediately clear if the anti-abortion site could still solicit anonymous tips via email or other means.
The move is just the latest fallout from the state’s draconian “Texas Heartbeat Act” that took effect on Sept. 1, banning abortions outright after the sixth week of pregnancy—before most women realize they are pregnant. Also known as SB 8, it was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, in May. And while there are loopholes for a mother whose life is in danger, the act does not include exceptions for rape or incest. In addition to targeting doctors who provide abortions, SB 8 also opens the door to lawsuits against insurance companies and even transportation services that might be involved at some point along the way.
To facilitate enforcement of the law, Texas Right to Life set up a digital tip line that lets Texans file anonymous reports about suspected violations.
“The Texas Heartbeat Act is unique because it calls upon private citizens to hold abortion providers and their enablers accountable,” the site explains (emphasis theirs). “Any person can sue any abortion provider who kills an unborn child after six weeks of gestation—and any person can sue anyone who aids or abets these illegal abortions. All of these individuals must pay damages to the person who sued them of at least $10,000 for each illegal abortion that they perform or assist.”
Texas Right to Life says it “will ensure that these lawbreakers are held accountable for their actions,” the site continues. “Use the links below to report anyone who is violating the Texas Heartbeat Act by aiding or abetting a post-heartbeat abortion. And report any person or entity that aids or abets (or that intends to aid or abet) an illegal abortion in Texas.”
When a user clicks on the site’s “Send an anonymous tip” button, a brief questionnaire appears asking for details. Users can also upload photos and video of any evidence that supports their claims. “We will not follow up with or contact you,” the site states.
This week, the site was overwhelmed with obviously bogus tips about people like Gov. Abbott seeking abortions, Shrek porn, and countless copies of the screenplay for 2007’s “Bee Movie.” Texas Right to Life reportedly had trouble keeping the site online due to the crush of traffic, an issue that appears to persist. Those attempting to access the site on Saturday from within Texas, as well as points further afield, were regularly met with an error message. When the site did occasionally work, trying to get past the homepage was often impossible.
GoDaddy had informed Texas Right to Life late Thursday that it would no longer be hosted, and to find another provider within 24 hours.
Texas Right to Life communications director Kim Schwartz on Friday wrote a blog post denouncing GoDaddy’s decision to drop the site, complaining that “keyboard warriors harassed GoDaddy” to cut ties with the group.
“We will not be silenced,” Texas Right to Life communications director Kimberlyn Schwartz told The Daily Beast in an email. “If anti-Lifers want to take our website down, we’ll put it back up. No one can keep us from telling the truth. No one can stop us from saving lives. We are not afraid of the mob. Anti-Life activists hate us because we’re winning. Hundreds of babies are being saved from abortion right now because of Texas Right to Life, and these attacks don’t change that.”
According to Schwartz, GoDaddy “neglected to specify” which rules the site had broken. But GoDaddy told Ars Technica that “the site violated multiple provisions,” including one that forbids using GoDaddy to “collect or harvest… non-public or personally identifiable information” without “prior written consent.”
The site had then quickly moved to Epik, a hosting provider that has in the past worked with other entities no one else would touch, including alt-right Twitter clone Parler, internet hate speech haven 8Chan, and Gab, the social network favored by Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers.
Epik’s CEO is a Dutch-American businessman in his 50s named Robert Monster—which is indeed his real name. After earning his MBA at Cornell University, Monster, who describes himself as a “Christian Libertarian,” went to work for Procter & Gamble as global product development manager for Pampers baby diapers.
In 2007, he found religion.
“I came to the deeply-researched conclusion that the God of the Bible is in fact the Creator of the Universe, and that the decision to accept the free gift of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ is the path to eternal life,” Monster said in a 2016 interview cited by HuffPost that has now been taken down.
Monster, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, founded Epik two years later. One of Epik’s selling points was that it would work with anyone who could pay, such as Alex Jones, the Sandy Hook truther behind conspiracy site Infowars. (Monster apparently draws the line at The Daily Stormer, a virulently anti-Semitic website he sent packing in 2019.)
For now, Epik is among Texas Right to Life’s only choices. But Schwartz said the group is still “exploring various long-term plans for hosting.”
Texas Right to Life will be celebrating the new law with a “Celebration of Life” on Sept. 18 at the Hilton Americas hotel in downtown Houston. It is selling corporate sponsorships for up to $50,000, according to a flyer for the event.