Author: Dave Gomboc
Date: 18:56:06 04/12/00
Go up one level in this thread
On April 12, 2000 at 16:52:13, Frederic Friedel wrote: >Does Consumer Reports have to get permission from the manufacturers of each >product whether it can be tested or not? Can and has a manufactuere successfully >instructed Consumer Reports not to publish the results of a test? How exactly >can you aim to be "independent" if you have to abide by such instructions? > >Just curious to know. Consumer Reports does not get the permission from the manufacturers of a product before testing it. In the USA, that is not necessary (and that it isn't necessary is already well-tested in the courts ;-). Consumer Reports purchases all products that they test: if sent a free sample by a manufacturer, they return it. They do not even allow their test results to be used in advertisements by manufacturers. In other words, they work _very_ hard at being, and appearing, as impartial as possible. Occasionally, a manufacturer disagrees with the evaluation printed in Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports has been sued by manufacturers before. http://www.consumersunion.org/products/SUV/trialend400.htm discusses one case that was just decided last week (incidentally the plantiff, the car manufacturer Isuzu, lost the suit.) SSDF is not by any means as large an organization as Consumer Reports. I am not suggesting that they be exactly the same. For instance, I think it would be okay for them to accept free chess software product samples, provided that there are _no_ strings attached: for instance, SSDF does not agree to review a product (at all, never mind favourably) simply because they received free copies of it. I suspect that Millennium GmbH would have an extremely tough time winning in court against the SSDF if they did publish results for Genuis 6.5, WChess, etc. Nonetheless, it appears that they feel that bullying independent citizen groups is a successful marketing strategy. I can only shake my head. Dave
This page took 0.02 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.