User:Bluerasberry/Consumer Reports merge

Consumers Union is a non-profit organization based in the United States whose mission is to advocate on policy issues related to telecommunications, mass media, vehicle safety, health care, product safety, financial services, investing, food safety, housing, and energy and utility deregulation.

The organization published the Consumer Reports magazine since its founding in 1936 until 2012. In 2012, Consumers Union created a spin off company named Consumer Reports to continue its mission of product research, testing and reporting via its Consumer Reports magazine (as well as via an online website), while the Consumers Union company dedicated itself exclusively to advocacy matters.

Consumers Union has four advocacy offices that attempt to influence policy that affects consumers. They are located in Washington, D.C.; San Francisco, California; Austin, Texas; and Yonkers, New York. Employees based in these offices "testify before federal and state legislative and regulatory bodies, petition government agencies, and file lawsuits on behalf of the consumer interest."

History
Consumers Union's predecessor, Consumers' Research, was founded in 1926. In 1936, Consumers Union was founded by Arthur Kallet, Colston Warne, and others who felt that the established Consumers' Research organization was not aggressive enough. Kallet, an engineer and director of Consumers' Research, had a falling out with F.J. Schlink and started his own organization with Amherst College economics professor Colston Warne. In part due to actions of Consumers' Research, the House Un-American Activities Committee placed Consumers Union on a list of subversive organizations, only to remove it in 1954.

Prominent consumer advocate Ralph Nader was on the board of directors, but left in 1975 due to a "division of philosophy" with new Executive Director Rhoda Karpatkin. Nader wanted Consumers Union to focus on policy and product advocacy, while Karpatkin focused on product testing. Karpatkin was appointed Executive Directory in 1974 and retired as President in the early 2000s.

Consumers Union has helped start several consumer groups and publications, in 1960 helping create global consumer group Consumers International and in 1974 providing financial assistance to Consumers' Checkbook which is considered akin to Consumer Reports for local services in the seven metropolitan areas they serve.

At the start of 2009, Consumers Union acquired The Consumerist blog from Gawker Media for approximately $600,000.

In 2012 the publishing organization began doing business as "Consumer Reports", which is also the name of the magazine published by the organization. The reason for the name change was that the name of "Consumer Reports" this means that it was more familiar to the public than the name "Consumers Union". The name "Consumers Union" became reserved for the subsection of the organization which participates in political advocacy.

Advocacy and campaigns
Consumers Union has hundreds of thousands of e-advocates who take action and write letters to policymakers about the issues its advocates take on. CU has also launched several advocacy websites, including HearUsNow.org, which helps consumers with telecommunications policy matters. In March 2005, CU campaign PrescriptionforChange.org released "Drugs I Need", an animated short with a song from the Austin Lounge Lizards, that was featured by The New York Times, JibJab, BoingBoing, and hundreds of blogs.

On Earth Day 2005, CU launched GreenerChoices.org, a web-based initiative meant to "inform, engage, and empower consumers about environmentally friendly products and practices." GreenerChoices.org offers an "accessible, reliable, and practical source of information on buying 'greener' products that have minimal environmental impact and meet personal needs." The site contains many articles about different products, rating them on how "green" they are. It also focuses on electronics and appliance recycling and reuse, as well as conservation and global warming prevention. Consumers Union launched the service Greener Choices, which is meant to "inform, engage, and empower consumers about environmentally-friendly products and practices." It contains information about conservation, electronics recycling and conservation with the goal or providing an "accessible, reliable, and practical source of information on buying “greener” products that have minimal environmental impact and meet personal needs."

Consumers Union, the advocacy and policy arm of Consumer Reports Magazine, is a sponsor of the Safe Patient Project, with the goal to aid consumers in finding the best quality of health care by promoting the public disclosure of hospital-acquired infection rates and medical errors. The US Centers for Disease Control states that about 2 million patients annually (about 1 in 20) will acquire an infection while being treated in a hospital for an unrelated health care problem, resulting in 99,000 deaths and as much as $45 billion in excess hospital costs.

The campaign has worked in every state calling for legislation requiring hospitals to disclose infection rates to the public. A list of state infection reports can be found here. The Safe Patient Project also works on medical devices, prescription drugs, and physician accountability.

In 2002, Consumers Union launched the grant-funded project Consumer Reports WebWatch, which aimed 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. WebWatch worked with the Stanford Web Credibility Project, Harvard University's Berkman Center, The Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, and others. WebWatch is a member of ICANN, the W3C and the Internet Society. Its content is free. As of July 31, 2009, WebWatch has been shut down, though the site is still available.

Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs is available free on Consumer Reports Health.org. It compares prescription drugs in over 20 major categories, such as heart disease, blood pressure and diabetes, and gives comparative ratings of effectiveness and costs, in reports and tables, in web pages and PDF documents, in summary and detailed form.

Lawsuits against Consumers Union
Consumers Union has been sued several times by companies unhappy with reviews of their products in Consumer Reports. Consumers Union has fought these cases vigorously. As of October 2000, Consumers Union had been sued by 13 manufacturers, and never lost a case.

Bose
In 1971 Bose Corporation sued Consumer Reports (CR) magazine for libel after CR reported in a review that the sound from the system it reviewed "tended to wander about the room". The case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court, which affirmed in Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc. that CR ' s statement was made without actual malice and therefore was not libelous.

Suzuki
In 1988, Consumer Reports announced during a press conference that the Suzuki Samurai had demonstrated a tendency to roll and deemed it "not acceptable." Suzuki sued in 1996 after the Samurai was again mentioned in a CR anniversary issue. In July 2004, after eight years in court, the suit was settled and dismissed with no money changing hands and no retraction issued, but Consumers Union did agree no longer to refer to the 16-year-old test results of the 1988 Samurai in its advertising or promotional materials.

Rivera Isuzu
In December 1997, the Isuzu Trooper distributor in Puerto Rico sued CR, alleging that it had lost sales as a result of CU's disparagement of the Trooper. A trial court granted CU's motion for summary judgment, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the favorable judgment.

Sharper Image
In 2003, Sharper Image sued CR in California for product disparagement over negative reviews of its Ionic Breeze Quadra air purifier. CR moved for dismissal on October 31, 2003, and the case was dismissed in November 2004. The decision also awarded CU $525,000 in legal fees and costs.

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 those seats passed the corresponding NHTSA tests at the speeds described in the magazine report. The CR 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. CR stated in a letter from its president Jim Guest to its subscribers that it would retest the seats. The article was removed from the CR website, and on January 18, 2007 the organization posted a note on its home page about the misleading tests. Subscribers were also sent a postcard apologizing for the error.

On January 28, 2007, The New York Times published an op-ed from Joan Claybrook, who served on the board of CU from 1982 to 2006 (and was the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 1977 to 1981), where she discussed the sequence of events leading to the publishing of the erroneous information.

Campaign for children's health care
Consumers Union is a partner in the Campaign for Children's Health Care, a multi-year campaign to raise awareness about the problem of uninsured children in America.