Talk:Consumer Reports

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Apparent misstatements

The article says this:

CR also forbids the use of its reviews for selling products; for example, it will not allow a manufacturer to advertise a positive review.^[1] CR has gone to court to enforce that rule.^[2]

I checked the first of the two cited sources, and it does not say anything that resembles what the sentence says. I do not know what the second cited source says (since it is paywalled), but these two sentences seem obviously incorrect on their face. As far as I know, the manufacturer of an evaluated product has no contract agreement with CR, and therefore has no enforceable constraints that govern its actions. Therefore, as far as I can tell, CR has no right nor any legal mechanism to control what a manufacturer (or anyone else) can and cannot say about their reviews (at least not in countries such as the United States where a principle of freedom of speech exists, at least as long as the manufacturer's statements are truthful and are within the bounds of fair use regarding copyright and trademark rights). Whatever this is trying to say, can someone please correct it? In the absence of a reaction, I plan to delete those statements, since they seem clearly incorrect.

I see some prior conversation about this in Talk:Consumer Reports/Archive 1 § Use in advertisements and Talk:Consumer Reports/Archive 1 § Bias again.

—BarrelProof (talk) 19:46, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The only reference I can see regarding this is under CR's Commercial Use policy, which forbids "excerpts". I take this to basically mean a product's manufacturer cannot cherry-pick reviews for its benefit. To the first sentence in question, a manufacturer would not be allowed to only advertise a positive review (while ignoring negative reviews). Hope this helps. 3veritas3 (talk) 15:58, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "Our Mission". Consumers Union. Retrieved 27 September 2012.
^ Dougherty, Phillip (10 Oct 1983). "ADVERTISING; Regina Still Restrained On Consumer Reports". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-11-15.

Edit request for removing content

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered.

Please remove the following text. This information is a misinterpretation. Also the sources associated with it are self published instead of third party sources.

but its website has retailers' advertisements. Consumer Reports states that PriceGrabber places the ads and pays a percentage of referral fees to CR,^[1] who has no direct relationship with the retailers.^[2] Consumer Reports publishes reviews of its business partner and recommends it in at least one case.^[3]

Please see the above request for removing content. Where that content was removed please add this information.

Consumer Reports is a non-profit organization. It accepts no money, test samples, or gifts of any kind from any commercial source.^[4]^[5] Products to be tested are purchased at retail prices by anonymous shoppers around the country.^[4] Consumer Reports doesn’t publish any advertising from outside parties.^[6]^[7]^[5]

References

^ Guest, Jim (Nov 2009). "From our president". Consumer Reports. Consumers Union. Archived from the original on 11 December 2009. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
^ "Buy Kenmore 6002[2]". Consumer Reports. Consumers Union. Retrieved 2012-11-02.
^ "Start your engines!". Consumer Reports. Consumers Union. Oct 2010. Archived from the original on 23 September 2017. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
^ ^a ^b Brobeck, Stephen (1997). Encyclopedia of the consumer movement. Santa Barbara, Calif. [u.a.]: ABC-Clio. p. 183. ISBN 978-0874369878.
^ ^a ^b "No Commercial Use Policy". www.consumerreports.org. Consumer Reports.
^ Bounds, Gwendolyn (5 May 2010). "Meet the Sticklers". The Wall Street Journal. New York: Dow Jones. ISSN 0099-9660. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
^ Stross, Randall (11 December 2011). "Consumer Reports, Going Strong at 75". The New York Times. New York: NYTC. ISSN 0362-4331. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Douglas Love (talk) 19:33, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reply 8-OCT-2019

Clarification requested

I've combined the two requests into one for clarity, and because they deal with the same passage of text.

One of the claims given in the article states that "Consumer Reports publishes reviews of its business partner and recommends it in at least one case." The source given for this claim is an archived page from ConsumerReports.org which states: "Editor's Note: PriceGrabber.com operates the shopping service at ConsumerReports.org." One of the services being recommended on that page was the PriceGrabber.com search engine.
The reason provided with the request for this change states that the claim regarding the editor's note is a "misinterpretation", but this has not been clarified as to how and in what way the statement is a misinterpretation of the editor's note.^[1] Please advise.
Another claim proposed to be removed is that "Consumer Reports states that PriceGrabber places the ads and pays a percentage of referral fees to CR". The source given for that claim is a passage written by Jim Guest, which states "Like other Web sites, PriceGrabber collects referral fees from retailers when someone clicks to them. Consumer Reports will be accepting from PriceGrabber a percentage of fees that it collects, subject to strict guidelines".
If the term "misrepresentation" also applies to this claim, then it should be additionally clarified as to how and in what way that claim is a misinterpretation of the Guest statement.^[1]

When ready to proceed with your clarifications, kindly change the {{request edit}} template's answer parameter to read from |ans=yes to |ans=no. Thank you!

Regards, Spintendo 14:18, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ ^a ^b "Template:Request edit". Wikipedia. 7 July 2019. Instructions for submitters — #6: "If the rationale for a change is not obvious (particularly for proposed deletions), explain.

I'd like to suspend this request for a while. Thank you.--Douglas Love (talk) 18:20, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Douglas Love: Not a problem. When ready to proceed, please be sure to reactivate the request template. And going forward from here, if you have any additional questions or concerns regarding the article, please feel free to post them here as well. This talk page exists as a forum for the improvement of the article, and I want you to feel welcome in raising any issues or concerns here as you see fit. If I, or another editor, don't know the answers to those concerns or ideas, then we will find someone who does. I appreciate your time in helping to improve the article. Warm regards, Spintendo 02:33, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Expansion

What is the criteria for the admissibility of specific studies? 216.164.249.213 (talk) 23:13, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: HIST 463 Consumerism in Modern America

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 September 2023 and 15 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Wcubias (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Alex Winetrout, Jacksonfarr1.

— Assignment last updated by Heinzam (talk) 19:00, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[CR_Mission-1] "Our Mission". Consumers Union. Retrieved 27 September 2012.

[2] Dougherty, Phillip (10 Oct 1983). "ADVERTISING; Regina Still Restrained On Consumer Reports". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-11-15.

[CR_2009-11-3] Guest, Jim (Nov 2009). "From our president". Consumer Reports. Consumers Union. Archived from the original on 11 December 2009. Retrieved 2018-09-28.

[4] "Buy Kenmore 6002[2]". Consumer Reports. Consumers Union. Retrieved 2012-11-02.

[5] "Start your engines!". Consumer Reports. Consumers Union. Oct 2010. Archived from the original on 23 September 2017. Retrieved 2018-09-28.

[Brobeck_1997_p_183-6] Brobeck, Stephen (1997). Encyclopedia of the consumer movement. Santa Barbara, Calif. [u.a.]: ABC-Clio. p. 183. ISBN 978-0874369878.

[NoCommercialUse-7] "No Commercial Use Policy". www.consumerreports.org. Consumer Reports.

[Bounds2010-8] Bounds, Gwendolyn (5 May 2010). "Meet the Sticklers". The Wall Street Journal. New York: Dow Jones. ISSN 0099-9660. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

[Stross2011-9] Stross, Randall (11 December 2011). "Consumer Reports, Going Strong at 75". The New York Times. New York: NYTC. ISSN 0362-4331. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

[clar-10] "Template:Request edit". Wikipedia. 7 July 2019. Instructions for submitters — #6: "If the rationale for a change is not obvious (particularly for proposed deletions), explain.

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