Consumer Reports Buys Consumerist.com
By Laura Wilson, Information-Security-Resources.com Corporate Liability Editor
The Publishers of Consumer Reports have announced the acquisition of The Consumerist, an influential consumer advocacy Internet publishing group. What great news for those of us interested in protecting consumers, and thus, the long-term interests of those oft-forgotten company owners: the shareholders.
Remember, if you contribute in any way to the financing of our federal government - say, by paying taxes - you now have an ownership interest in any company taking public bailout money. Their performance now directly affects your pocketbook.
The union of these consumer advocates will hopefully prove advantageous to taxpayers, shareholders, and consumers alike.
Consumers Union (CU), the highly trusted, independent publisher of Consumer Reports magazine and ConsumerReports.org, has purchased Consumerist.com from Gawker Media. The popular consumer watchdog blog will operate independently of Consumer Reports publications and be the first property housed under a new non-profit entity called Consumer Media LLC. The change in ownership will be in effect as of January 1, 2009.
“We’re delighted to add this vibrant site to our portfolio of information products,” said Jim Guest, President and CEO of Consumers Union. “The Consumerist community is passionate about fair retail practices, truth in advertising, product safety, and other topics that Consumer Reports has championed for more than 70 years. The site is a perfect fit for advancing our mission of creating a fair, safe, and just marketplace.”
Combining the unimpeachable credibility and expertise of Consumers Union, the publishers of Consumer Reports since 1936, with the widely read, shoot-and-move Consumerist format that nets over 10 million pages views per month is a big win for the public and their advocates.
I have long followed the not-for-profit work of Consumers Union, which many of us may remember stacked in our grandparents’ fragrant basements alongside stacks of Popular Mechanics. They are doing some great work calling out fraud and abuse in the ever-worsening financial mess, and I hope they continue to expand that advocacy.
We are delighted to add Consumers Union and Consumerist to our short-list of great sites.
Kudos, and keep it up!
Laura is a business consultant and an advocate for information security, consumer protection, long-term shareholder value, and better management decisions. Her specialty is finding and fixing risks and threats to sensitive data. Her experience includes international banking, credit card, and mortgage companies, venture capital portfolio companies, and software and technology providers. She practiced law in Silicon Valley during the tech boom and meltdown, handling corporate governance and information protection.
The Author gives permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author and to Information-Security-Resources.com
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Filed under: D&O Liability, FEATURE ARTICLE, Financial, Uncategorized, privacy
Comments
One Comment on Consumer Reports Buys Consumerist.com
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Michael Karesh on
Thu, 1st Jan 2009 4:20 pm
Definitely good compared to the Consumerist going away. However, I’m personally concerned about this purchase.
I operate TrueDelta.com, which provides vehicle reliability information. Our information has two large advantages over that of Consumer Reports:
1. Report actual repair rates, not just vague dots, to make the differences between models much clearer.
2. Results promptly updated four times a year; so our information averages about ten months ahead of CR’s.
But, since we’re a competitor, you’ll never see CR mention our information, and I’m personally not allowed to mention my site in their forums–even when I have information that they cannot provide. Now that they’ve bought the Consumerist, I suspect the same will be true for it.
Quite a few times a journalist has told me that he can’t write about the unique information TrueDelta.com offers car buyers, because part of what the site offers competes with information offered by their employer.
In other words, from where I sit media consolidation isn’t a good thing. Each media outlet has its own interests, and these come before the interests of readers. The larger these outlets get, the broader their interests get, and the more delimited their reporting gets. Even in CR’s case. CR is for CR first, consumers second.
They’ve somehow convinced many in the media that they deserve to be the sole voice for consumer interests. They’d love to either buy or silence all competitors. There are good reasons this isn’t allowed when the aspiring monopolist is a for-profit firm, and the same reasons should apply to CR.
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