Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports, an American magazine published monthly by Consumers Union, publishes reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from its in-house testing laboratory. It has approximately 4 million subscribers , and an annual testing budget of approximately $21 million U.S. The annual Consumer Reports new car issue, released every April, is typically the magazine's best-selling issue and is thought to influence millions of automobile purchases. The equivalent to Consumer Reports in the UK is Which? magazine. In the UK a consumer report is a generic phrase refering to any document informing the consumer about products. It can simply give product descriptions or extend to ethical matters.

Claims of objectivity

Consumer Reports advertises its objectivity and freedom from bias. It does not print outside advertising or permit the commercial use of its reviews for selling products. This eliminates one source of bias.

All tested products are purchased at retail by Consumer Reports staff. No free samples are accepted from manufacturers. This avoids the possibility of bias from bribery, or from being given "better than average" samples.

Ancillary publications

ConsumerReports.org, the related website, claims more paid subscribers than any other publication-based Web site. Most of its information is only available to paid subscribers.

With short life-cycle products such as electronics, the reviewed product has often been replaced or discontinued prior to publication. ConsumerReports.org provides updates on product availabilty, and adds new products to previously published test results.

In 2002 Consumers Union launched Consumer Reports WebWatch. The grant-funded project seeks to improve the credibility of Web sites through investigative reporting, publicizing best-practices standards, and publishing a list of sites that comply with the standards. Its content is free.

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

Lawsuits vs. Consumers Union

In 1996, Consumers Union published that the 1995-96 Isuzu Trooper sport utility vehicle had demonstrated a "tendency to roll over in certain situations" in their tests, and that they had determined that it was "not acceptable". In a press conference, they called on Isuzu to discontinue sales and recall Troopers already sold, and they continued to issue warnings about the Trooper, advising the public not to buy the vehicle and suggesting that federal officials should launch an investigation into possible product defects. Isuzu filed a lawsuit against Consumers Union as a result of the article; the court ruled that Consumer Reports had made "numerous false statements" and had put the Isuzu through tests that competitors were not subjected to, but though eight of ten jurors wanted to assign punitive damages, they did not find enough evidence of malicious intent and did not assign Isuzu cash damages , .

In December 1997, however, the Trooper distributor in Puerto Rico sued Consumers Union, alleging that it had lost sales as a result of Consumers Union's disparagement of the Trooper. The trial court granted Consumers Union's motion for summary judgment, however, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the favorable judgment, on the grounds that Consumers Union had only mentioned Isuzu and the Trooper, not the distributor specifically; since the challenged statements were not "of and concerning" the distributor, they would be precluded from suing for any injuries suffered as a result of the statements.

In 2003, Sharper Image sued Consumer Reports in California for product disparagement, over negative reviews of its Ionic Breeze Quadra air purifier. Consumer Reports moved for dismissal on October 31, 2003, under California's Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) law, and the case was dismissed in November 2004, on the grounds that the Sharper Image "has not shown that the test protocol used by Consumers Union was scientifically, or otherwise, invalid," and had not "demonstrated a reasonable probability that any of the challenged statements were false." The decision also awarded Consumers Union $525,000 in legal fees and costs.

See also

• Good Housekeeping Institute
• List of Consumer Reports Automobile Tests
• Underwriters Laboratories

Cultural references

• In "Rabbit is Rich" by John Updike, protagonist Harry Angstrom reads the "Consumer Reports" a great deal.

References

• Consumer Reports website, "Our Mission". At [1]. Retrieved July 09, 2005.
• Consumer Reports website, "Consumers Union Shopping and Testing". At [2]. Retrieved July 09, 2005.

External links

• Consumer Reports Main website
• Consumer Reports WebWatch
• Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs web page
• High court sends magazine to trial over auto review
• Critique of Consumer Reports statistical methods on Allpar