Consumer Reports

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Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports cover dated November 2005
Editorial Director	Kevin McKean
Categories	Consumer advocacy
Frequency	Monthly
Circulation	4,000,000 / month
Publisher	Consumers Union
First Issue	January 1936
Country	United States
Language	English
Website	consumerreports.org
ISSN	0010-7174

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 ^[1], and an annual testing budget of approximately $21 million U.S.^[2] 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 referring to any document informing the consumer about products. It can simply give product descriptions or extend to ethical matters.

Contents 1 Claims of objectivity 2 Ancillary publications 3 Lawsuits vs. Consumers Union 4 Controversy over child safety seats 5 Other errors or issues 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 availability, 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.

[edit] Lawsuits vs. Consumers Union

In 1996, Consumers Union published a report indicating 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.^[3][4]

Related to this suit, in 1988, Consumers Union published that the Suzuki Samurai had demonstrated the same tendency to roll and deemed it "not acceptable." In July 2004, this suit was settled with no money changing hands.

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. ^[5]

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.^[6][7]

[edit] Controversy over child safety seats

The February 2007 issue of Consumer Reports stated that only two of the child safety seats it tested for that issue passed the magazine's side impact tests. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which subsequently retested the seats, found that all the seats tested by Consumer Reports passed the corresponding NHTSA tests at the speeds described in the magazine report. The Consumer Reports article reported that the tests simulated the effects of collisions at 38.5 mph. However, the tests that were completed in fact simulated collisions at 70 mph.^[8] Consumer Reports stated in a letter from President Jim Guest to subscribers that it would retest the seats. The magazine issue with erroneous findings has not been recalled, but the letter states that after the seats are retested, the results of that test will be published. The article was removed from the Consumer Reports web site, and on January 18 the organization posted a note on its home page concerning the misleading tests. Subscribers were also sent a postcard apologizing for the error.

On January 28, 2007, Joan Claybrook, who served on the board of Consumers Union from 1982 to 2006 (and was the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 1977 to 1981), discussed the sequence of events leading to the erroneous information being published. The magazine contracted with Calspan to do the actual testing; due to miscommunication, the tests were conducted (using test sleds) at an actual speed of 38 miles per hour. In fact, since automobiles in a crash continue to move after the crash rather than absorbing all the energy of impact, unlike a test sled, a test sled impact of 38 miles per hour is considered equivalent to an automobile crash of 70 miles per hour; to replicate an automobile crash of 38 miles per hour, as was intended, the test sled crash should have been carried out at 20 miles per hour. While Claybrook stated that the magazine should have been motivated to double-check the surprising results, she also pointed out that the magazine had been doing what should have been NHTSA's work, even though "Consumer Reports does not conduct crash tests, save for low-speed bumper-impact tests... it has limited expertise in designing such tests." In 2000 Congress had mandated NHTSA to define a set of tests and issue a set of safety standards for child restraints within two years; yet NHTSA has not yet done so, "though it took less than 10 days to evaluate Consumer Reports’ testing and find the error." ^[9]

[edit] Other errors or issues

In 2006, Consumer Reports said six hybrid vehicles would probably not save owners money. The magazine later discovered that they had miscalculated depreciation, and released an update saying that four of the seven vehicles would save the buyer money, if the vehicle was kept for five years (including the federal tax credit for hybrid vehicles, which expires after each manufacturer sells 60,000 hybrid vehicles). ^[10]

In February 1998, the magazine tested pet food and claimed that Iams dog food was nutritionally deficient. They later retracted the report claiming that there had been "a systemic error in the measurements of various minerals we tested – potassium, calcium and magnesium." They stated they would conduct the study again and publish the results but have yet to do so. ^[11]

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] This research was criticized by some because most engine damage appears to be caused by cold starts, and their research method did not include any cold starts; in addition, if their research could not see a difference between natural oils and synthetic oils, it could not be expected to differentiate between various qualities of natural oils. ^[13]

[edit] See also

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

[edit] 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.

[edit] External links

• Consumer Reports Main website