November 27, 2025 - I received an email from my broker that every Realtor dreads. An outside escrow company suffered a breach of its trust account. Funds from multiple buyers were reportedly stolen in what's being described as a hack, and several closings across our firm were halted on the spot. Because there is no public information available yet and I have no interest in interfering with any investigation, I'm not naming the escrow company involved. What I can say is that the description in my broker's email lines up almost exactly with previous documented escrow-trust hacks, and those cases tell us a lot about the risks, the liabilities, and the path forward for both consumers and real estate professionals.

November 16, 2025 - Nearly 2/3s of Americans have at least one paid online subscription. The most popular of these are paid video streaming services. But others worth mentioning include music streaming, software subscriptions, scheduled monthly deliveries, cloud storage, etc... And if you subscribe to any of these services, there is a pretty good chance that at least one of those subscriptions is from Google. Whether it is YouTube TV, cloud storage or software/apps (from the Play Store), Google has a large subscriber base.

November 9, 2025 - Companies around the globe are rapidly embracing AI. They see it as a way to cut costs and improve efficiency... and in many cases, it works. But AI has a number of issues and any company that thinks using AI to manage customer data is a good idea is really asking for trouble.

October 30, 2025 - Starting January 1 2026 new data privacy laws will take effect in Indiana Kentucky and Rhode Island giving millions of Americans more rights over how their personal information is collected shared and sold. Though each law has its own twist they all offer a set of core protections that include the right to know what data companies collect about you the right to delete or correct that data and the ability to opt out of targeted advertising or the sale of personal information. These laws are part of a growing movement among states to give consumers more control over their personal data.

October 20, 2025 - White House Budget Director Russell Vought announced this week that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will be shut down within the next two to three months. Speaking on a radio program, Vought stated that the agency is already in the process of winding down, with only a small group of staff remaining at its Washington, D.C. headquarters. He described the CFPB as having overreached its mandate and placed unnecessary burdens on small lenders and financial institutions.