Talk:Consumer Reports

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)

I don't know where else to put this:

In 2005 Consumers Union launched the service Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs, which takes publicly available (but difficult to comprehend) studies on pharmaceutical effectiveness and combines them with pricing information in an easy-to-read format.

"difficult to comprehend" and "easy-to-read" are not NPOV, if they are in a source name the source if they aren't reword it somehow. Possibly "Using medical terminology" and "In laymans terms" I think it's more objective to decide what's "medical terminology", but maybe not, any ideas?(69.76.197.156 08:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC))

Settlement and dismissal

Someone added "and dismissed" to the notice of settlement. Cases are settled OR dismissed, with the latter implying lack of guilt, which does not appear to be the case here. Davert 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The wording was taken from the link inserted. Remove the wording if desired but leave the link. I'm not sure I understand your comment 'which does not appear to be the case here'. The settlement does not appear include any admission of liability or error. 130.156.29.101 19:59, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Finished some more searching. There was actually a court filing for the DISMISSAL of Litigation, so this term is likely correct. http://www.projectsamurai.com/suzuki-cu_agreement.html 130.156.29.101 20:15, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

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

Perhaps we should remove any reputational comments, since they don't really provide real information and are so controversial. Davert 19:23, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

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 case of Bose I have added information detailing the case with links to the actual court reports and to cases that refer to the ruling when citing precedent. There have been reports in the press that the libel verdict was overturned by the US Supreme Court but this is eronious... the US Supreme Court upheld the verdict of libel but reversed the descision to award Bose damages as Malice could not be proved (see links in the article).ASH1977LAW 13:55, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm making the same changes as on the Bose page, for reasons discussed on the talk page there (in short, legal discussion does not make sense).Jedgeco 20:13, 19 May 2007 (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

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 don't have a source but I remember that somebody used Consumer Reports as a source in an ad, and CU sued them, and CU lost, but despite this hazy memory, one certainly does not see it happen normally, so obviously someone who's knowledgeable should insert material on this in the article. Tempshill 23:04, 26 September 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

Cite sources and support your allegations and add them to the article. Tempshill 23:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

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

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)

Because the definition in the UK is different from the US definition, which should be mentioned in the article. If someone came to the article looking for the meaning of consumer reports they would then be enlightened as to both of it's possible meanings. ASH1977LAW 16:35, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Current Event?

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

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)

Claims of objectivity

Currently every statement in this section lacks citation, apart from "court rulings have found bias". Is there anyone who can provide a suitable citation? ASH1977LAW 08:29, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Reverse Objectivity

Excepting the intro, this entire article is about either the 5 or so mistakes Consumer Reports has made over 70+ years and the 5 or so times they have been sued. They have absolutely nothing to do with what the magazine is about, and belong on a subpage, am I right? This article should describe what the magazine is, its approximate circulation, what types of products it reviews, what the sections of the magazine are, who it's editor is, etc. Why so biased? --CastAStone|^(talk) 19:52, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Lots of negativity

This article seems unbalanced....so much info on errors, as if they were the defining quality of the magazine or the organization. No question that they have pulled a few bloopers. But I don't believe that they are defining and in fact capture attention only because they are so unexpected and out of character. It would make more sense to keep errors and bloopers balanced and in context. NuclearWinner 22:22, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The tone of this entry is negative. --24.249.108.133 18:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Then we should go through every wikipedia article and do the same. We can delete all the controversy from the main Air America Radio page, for example. As it happens, CR is generally respected but unquestioned, and when questioned, they are often found to make questionable decisions. This is something that needs to be included for balance; otherwise Wikipedia could just post a nice CR advertisement in this spot. Davert 19:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Omni and Horizon

I remember there was a dustup when CR put a big "Not Acceptable" stamp over the Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon on the cover. It was the first time a car had gotten a "Not Acceptable" rating. Chrysler disputed the validity of the test, same as Isuzu did. If anyone can cite sources on the controversy it'd be a notable inclusion, I think. Tempshill 23:06, 26 September 2007 (UTC)