User:Bluerasberry/cr intro

Consumer Reports ("CR") is a United States-based nonprofit organization which conducts product testing and advocates for consumers. Consumer Reports is best known for publishing both a magazine and a website called Consumer Reports. With 7 million subscribers as of January 2016, Consumer Reports is one of the most popular publications in the United States. It is regarded as the most influential nonprofit consumer organization in the world. It seeks to improve the marketplace for the consumer by conducting product testing to check the claims of advertising.

The organization was founded in 1936 as Consumers Union to challenge new sorts of advertising claims which began to appear during the mass media growth of the era. That advertising was itself a consequence of the chaotic, unchecked, and dangerous marketplace which developed after the advent of mass production in the early 1900s. Subscription sales of the Consumer Reports' own publications have been the organization's primary source of income since its founding. Consumer Reports has never published any corporation's advertisements or had any financial partnership with a corporation. Consumer Reports buys all products that it tests and has never accepted a product sample from any company, manufacturer, or commercial sponsor.

Subscription sales of the magazine generated enough revenue to help spawn the modern consumer movement. In the United States and internationally as a member of Consumers International, Consumer Reports advocates for the rights of consumers in such fields as the consumer products marketplace, health care, environmental protection, freedom of information, and personal finance.