Talk:Consumer Reports

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Contents 1 Tone 2 Auto test controversy 3 ATTN: Company-Bashing 4 Use in advertisements 5 fraudulent tests 6 Other discussion 7 Current Event? 8 Other errors or issues

[edit] Tone

Given that someone flagged this article as biased, I went through, removed all CR advertising material, resectioned it to fit the wikipedia guideline of a short intro, deleted some CU material that's already on the CU page anyway, and tried to keep ALL non-advertising material intact. I hope I helped. I did not, as far as I know, inject any of my own personal opinions. Nearly all my work went into the first part of the article; I don't think I touched any of the controversies, etc. Davert 20:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Auto test controversy

I have reverted the previous 2 edits to the Consumer Reports article. The first edit changed:

Consumer Reports' tests and ratings of automobiles are highly respected in the automotive industry.

to

Consumer Reports' tests and ratings of automobiles are highly controversial as some have charged that they are often biased against U.S. automobile companies. Further as reliability ratings are often based upon the opinions of subscribers and are subject to their opinion the accuracy is often called into question.

...a wild difference unsupported by the editor using cites or even a comment when making the edit.

The second edit (by the same editor) was the addition of: 'Consumer Reports is also called into controversy for it's failure to completely delineate the risk involved in some forms of birth control in it's February 2005 article Birth control: More & safer choices and it's advocacy of medicinal marijuana.

This edit is also unsupported with a cite or a comment.

I have changed the "spirit" of the article back to the form it has had since its inception. I am looking for guidance as to the correctness of this action.

Keryst 02:27, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

User:24.188.119.102 Please provide citation for your repeated editing as above. The change you make to the article is too huge to make without some proof (either cite or comment). Keryst 04:33, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I have researched a fair bit on google and cannot find reasonable sources for your edit. There is alot of chatter about biased automobile reports on various forums, but nothing that would warrant your statement as fact. Even Comsumer Reports supposed largest critic: Distored Reports ( http://www.junkscience.com/consumer/consumer_index.html ) does not mention it.

What about http://www.allpar.com/cr.html ? What about this rather damning piece of evidence from the LA Times - "In a setback to the nation's most popular consumer magazine, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that Consumer Reports' publisher must stand trial over Isuzu Motors Ltd.'s claim that the magazine rigged its vaunted vehicle-handling test in a deliberate campaign to destroy the reputation of the Isuzu Trooper sport-utility vehicle." ? User:Davert

[edit] ATTN: Company-Bashing

I had to do a minor edit on this article mainly because there has been a clause which excessive company-bashing took place. Consumer Reports is definitely an organization that has been liable for many company bashing implications in the past. There are some people who might be touchy about what Consumer Reports write, and others might be offended by what Consumer Reports deduce, but when mentioning any lawsuits, please be very touchy about the sources that you use. I have found out that right after Bose and Consumer Reports have finished a nasty legal fight, many "Anti-Bose" trolls have materialized since then, causing a flame war between Bose and Consumer Reports. It is very important that the edits you perform here does not instigate into a flame war and/or what I would call "a nasty verbal war over the Internet". Therefore, I really suggest that you be very touchy on what you add and/or edit and try to keep things NPOV and try not to encourage acts of trolling and/or flaming in this article. Also, I appreciate it if you kept all links updated and make sure that the referer websites does have contacts because there has been some websites that had e-mail links removed, which is not acceptable IMO. The intellexual.net link that I have seen is outdated and the webmaster cannot be contacted for any reason, so I was forced to remove that intellexual.net link to curb trolling and/or possible flame wars. — Mark Kim (Reply/Start Talk) 00:21, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

In the Suzuki case, didn't a court find CR had indeed exaggerated their findings and found them guilty, but only penalized them $1? Yes, here it is - http://www.gannett.com/go/newswatch/2003/june/nw0627-7.htm - 'The three-judge panel -- whose decision still stands -- had concluded that "the timing of the course modification" and "the fact that the Suzuki was tested until it tipped" suggested that CU "rigged" the test "in order to cause a rollover." Evidence that CU needed to boost revenues through a "blockbuster story" lent credence to the allegation of rigging, the court also found. In addition, the panel said that CU's failure to examine its testing methods after a government safety agency said that certain aspects of those tests were flawed could constitute evidence that it purposefully avoided learning that its rating was inaccurate.' That's pretty damning evidence and I think it should be included on the page, not swept under the rug. User:Davert

I noticed that several journalists understood that Isuzu had lost their lawsuit because they received no money, which is true (I think they did get a dollar or something), but the finding of fact was that CR had indeed essentially lied; this was widely reported at the time and is in the FULL NY Times article but not the abstract. User:Davert

[edit] Use in advertisements

Consumer Reports does not ... permit the commercial use of its reviews for selling products.

I think the article could use an explanation about how this is even possible. That is, under what law do they claim the right to limit the dissemination of facts published in their magazine. It can't be copyright law, as copyright only protects the form by which the facts are presented, not the facts themselves. See Idea-expression divide for more on this. Otherwise, what's to prevent U.S. News & World Report from prohibiting Yale University from advertising that their law school is ranked number 1? Btyner 20:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

That is a good question. Now that I think about it, they probably use trademark law (e.g. by suing people who use the Consumer Reports logo/name in their advertising) to prevent their name and logo from being attached to products. I'm not an expert, just reasonably well versed in trademark law.

As I see it CU is able to prevent others from using their logo in advertising--possibly their name as well. However they can't prevent advertisers from mentioning the fact that it was highly-ranked.

To illustrate: When I was in 9th Grade or so I saw a CR issue on house paints reccomending Lowe's American Tradition paints. A few weeks later I saw a Lowe's salesperson on videotape (from somebody's class project, not in a TV commercial) saying that the American Tradition paint recieved first place in tests by a "leading consumer testing magazine", but not mentioning Consumer Reports by name.

I don't know whether this use of trademark law would stand up in court, it does seem sort of a stretch, but I have never seen the Consumer Reports logo or ratings being used by name in advertising, so as far as I know they are successful. --TexasDex 04:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I would like to add that this page is more of an advertisement for Consumer Reports than an objective description. No mention is made of any real challenge to CR despite evidence for problems in their methods and objectivity (e.g. allpar.com/cr.html). Their "demandingn tests" have often been critiqued as have their choices for products to review - a bias towards more expensive, upscale products as opposed to their 1970s-1980s preference for the best value, least expensive items. You are more likely to find a $600 vacuum, for example, than an $80 vacuum tested; ditto for cars where the entry level gets relatively little play. At the least I think perhaps some of the more glowing praise shoudl be toned down. (By the way, taking no advertising is hardly evidence of lack of bias. When Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken speak for free, are they therefore unbiased?) Davert

[edit] fraudulent tests

I seem to recall a fraudulent test on Toyta vehicles in the 80s that caused Toyota to revoke a line of cars.

Didn't see any info about that in the article though.

You might if anybody else remembered it. Gzuckier 17:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

CR has been involved in a large number of "questionable" tests over the years. And any attempt to mention them in this article are quickly removed. The Suzuki Samuri report being the most obvious one. But every time somebody mentions it, they get NPOVed. 72.161.217.83 15:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, you can thwart the all-powerful Consumers Union cabal by providing a reference, site, etc. to document said questionablity of the tests. Gzuckier 17:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

"In a setback to the nation's most popular consumer magazine, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that Consumer Reports' publisher must stand trial over Isuzu Motors Ltd.'s claim that the magazine rigged its vaunted vehicle-handling test in a deliberate campaign to destroy the reputation of the Isuzu Trooper sport-utility vehicle." http://www.junkscience.com/consumer/oct99/consumer_lat0923.htm davert

Thanks, that's a good start. I followed it up, though, and found that in the end, CR won. But I'm not on some kind of whitewash crusade here, if you find any other links send them here and we'll see what we can do. Gzuckier 16:20, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I recall CR only "winning" in that the judgment was $1 - they were still found guilty. davert

No, that was the Bose case, where they lost but the appeals court reduced the damages to $1. I thought that had been in the article, maybe it got edited out. Or maybe it was never in there. Gzuckier 15:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Might have been both. There was definitely a finding of fact against CR in Isuzu case. davert

[edit] Other discussion

Is there a reason why we have that definition of what consumer reports are in the UK? Davert 19:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Current Event?

Is an organization really a current event? Zian 09:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC) Zian

[edit] Other errors or issues

In the section "Other errors and issues" there is the following quote:

"In July 1996, "Consumer Reports" tested motor oils in a fleet of taxi cabs. In their article, they noted that "Big-city cabs don't see many cold start-ups or long periods of high speed driving in extreme heat. But our test results relate to the most common type of severe service - stop-and-go city driving." They were unable to see a "meaningful" difference between any brands of oil which carried the API starburst symbol, but suggested that synthetic oil is "worth considering for extreme driving conditions high ambient temperatures and high engine load or very cold temperatures." [12]"

Please identify the error or issue that caused this article to be referred to here.

Their test can't distinguish between Mobil 1 and K-Mart brand because it does not test cold starts, which is when most engine damage occurs. However they felt free to say that synthetic could be helpful, without any supporting data; and despite the obvious fatal flaw in their testing, concluded that there's no difference between oil from any manufacturer (with API symbol). These are conclusions that cannot be made based on their inane experimental design. Unfortunately CR supporters have made that paragraph much less meaningful.

Is there a link to this report somewhere? -Grammaticus Repairo 08:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)