Consumer Reports - Editorial Independence

Editorial Independence

Consumer Reports is well known for its policies on editorial independence, which it says are to "maintain our independence and impartiality... CU has no agenda other than the interests of consumers." CR has unusually strict requirements and sometimes has taken extraordinary steps; for example they refused to renew a bulk subscription order for employees of car dealership because of "the appearance of an impropriety".

They do not print outside advertising in their magazine. Their website, however, does display retailers' advertisements; Consumer Reports say that the ads are placed by PriceGrabber, who collects referral fees from the retailers and pays a percentage to Consumer Reports, and that Consumer Reports has no direct relationship with the merchants. Consumer Reports does publish reviews of PriceGrabber, and at least in one case recommends them as the best choice. Previously, CR had a similar relationship with BizRate. CR also has had relationships with other companies including Amazon.com, Yahoo!, The Wall Street Journal; The Washington Post; BillShrink; and Decide.com. CR also accepts funding in the form of grants from other organizations, and at least one high-ranking Consumer Reports employee has gone on to work for a company he evaluated.

Another CR policy is to forbid the commercial use of their reviews for selling products; for example, they won't allow a manufacturer to advertise a positive review. CR has gone to court to enforce that rule.

Consumer Reports states that all tested products are purchased at retail prices by its staff, anonymously in "most cases"; that no free samples are accepted from manufacturers, and that this avoids the possibility of bias from bribery or from being given "better than average" samples. Consumer Reports does accept "press samples" from manufacturers in order to review products that are not yet publicly available, but they say that they pay for the samples and do not include them in ratings. For most of CR's history, they minimized contact with government and industry experts "to avoid compromising the independence of its judgment." Beginning in 2007, in response to errors in their tests on infant car seats, they changed their policy to enable a wide range of experts to advise them on designing tests, but not on final assessments. At times CR allows manufacturers to review and respond to significant criticism before publication.

Some objective and comparative tests published by Consumer Reports are carried out under the umbrella of the international consumer organization International Consumer Research & Testing. Consumer Reports also uses outside labs for testing, including for 11 percent of tests in 2006.