Consumers Union To Rate Credibility of Web Sites

[George at Orwellian.Org]

http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB991751206218456874.htm
#    
#    June 21, 2001
#    
#    Consumers Union Project Aims
#    To Rate Credibility of Web Sites
#    
#    By STEPHANIE MILES
#    WSJ.COM
#    
#    Consumers Union, long a trusted name in rating consumer products, 
#    offers online shoppers a window into electronic-commerce sites' 
#    business, security and privacy policies. Now the group wants 
#    to measure another critical component of a Web site: credibility.
#    
#    The Web Credibility Project, launched earlier this month, will 
#    focus on how health, travel, advocacy, news and shopping sites 
#    disclose business relationships with the companies and products 
#    they cover or sell, especially when these relationships pose 
#    a potential conflict of interest. Eventually, the group hopes 
#    to draft credibility guidelines to be integrated into 
#    ConsumerReports.org (www.consumerreports.org), the online entity 
#    of Consumer Reports.
#    
#    The group has some lofty goals, such as targeting drug companies 
#    who fail to adequately inform consumers about side effects and 
#    indications for drugs promoted online. But it also will focus 
#    on more mundane issues, such as convincing shopping and e-commerce 
#    sites to display business addresses and phone numbers prominently.
#    
#    "It's about trying to find a way to get major media and major 
#    e-commerce folks -- people who have a real stake in making sure 
#    the Web is a credible place to do business -- to agree to a set 
#    of standards," says Beau Brendler, director of the project. Mr. 
#    Brendler was previously editorial director at Walt Disney Co. 
#    Internet Group's ABCNews.com.
#    
#    While praising the motives behind Consumers Union's latest effort, 
#    some wonder if credibility can be evaluated as easily as everyday 
#    consumer goods such as cars and appliances.
#    
#    "Transparency, as a rule, is a good thing. How you actually 
#    accomplish that, I don't know," says Wendell Cochran, director 
#    of the journalism division at American University in Washington, 
#    D.C. "It should be incumbent on a site to give as much information 
#    as they could about who they are. But beyond that, credibility 
#    comes out of a company's performance over a long period of time."
#    
#    Open Disclosure
#    
#    In devising a set of voluntary standards for Web sites, the 
#    project aims to tackle concerns that consumers browsing cyberspace 
#    don't always see potential conflicts of interest between Web-site 
#    operators and the information they present.
#    
#    Consider ibreathe.com (www.ibreathe.com). At first glance, 
#    ibreathe appears to be an independent health-information site, 
#    serving up advice about asthma, allergies and other respiratory 
#    ailments, but visitors have to scroll to the bottom of the page 
#    to learn that the site is operated by GlaxoSmithKline PLC. 
#    Consumers interested in asthma medications, for example, are 
#    provided with information on GlaxoSmithKline drugs.
#    
#    GlaxoSmithKline believes the site is clear about its ties to 
#    the drug company.
#    
#    "The sponsorship is apparent when one goes to the Web site," 
#    says Lisa Behrens, a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, noting 
#    that GlaxoSmithKline is a member of the Internet Healthcare 
#    Coalition, which is focused on online ethics for health-infor
#    mation sites. "There is nothing that in anyway suggests that 
#    this is third-party or independent information," Ms. Behrens 
#    says.
#    
#    Still, the company is open to the suggestions of the Web 
#    Credibility Project. "If there's any entity -- Consumers' Union 
#    or others -- who has feedback or suggestions for GlaxoSmithKline, 
#    I'm sure we'd welcome it," Ms. Behrens says.
#    
#    But the question of how to come to a consensus on credibility 
#    issues can be tricky. Another example offered by Consumers Union's 
#    Mr. Brendler is the Web site of Keep America Beautiful 
#    (www.kab.org). Mr. Brendler calls Keep America Beautiful an 
#    example of an "astroturf" site -- one that looks like a 
#    grass-roots organization's Web outpost, but is in fact backed 
#    by a corporate or advocacy group.
#    
#    Mr. Brendler's prescription for making KAB.org more credible 
#    is for the site to more prominently link to or display the names 
#    of its corporate backers, which Mr. Brendler says include "200 
#    companies that manufacture aluminum cans, paper goods, glass 
#    bottles and plastics," such as Bethlehem Steel Corp., American 
#    Forest & Paper Association, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 
#    Pacific Gas & Electric and Philip Morris Cos.
#    
#    Walt Amacker, vice president and director of communications at 
#    Keep America Beautiful, disagrees that KAB.org is disingenuous 
#    about its backers. The site does include a comprehensive and 
#    easy-to-find list of donors, accessible by two mouse clicks, 
#    he says, which includes "anybody who's given any money through 
#    corporations or foundations through January 2001."
#    
#    Although the sponsorship information may not be accessible where 
#    most visitors would expect it to be -- under the heading "About 
#    KAB," for example -- the group does provide a detailed list of 
#    its corporate backers in the section of the site devoted to 
#    fund-raising.
#    
#    KAB has never shied away from revealing its corporate backers, 
#    Mr. Amacker says, because part of the purpose of the nonprofit 
#    group is to educate communities about how to prevent litter, 
#    toxic dumping and other misuse of industrial products. Mr. Amacker 
#    points out that KAB was rated "most credible" in a 1998 survey 
#    of environmental organizations conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide, 
#    a research and consulting group.
#    
#    Standards Needed
#    
#    The idea for creating a set of credibility standards grew out 
#    of a panel discussion at a 1998 conference sponsored by the 
#    Project for Excellence in Journalism and Pew Charitable Trusts.
#    
#    Consumers Union received $4.8 million in grants to launch the 
#    Web Credibility Project, including $2.7 million from Pew 
#    Charitable Trusts, $2 million from the Knight Foundation and 
#    $100,000 from the Open Society Institute.
#    
#    Consumers Union has shown it understands the online world, 
#    launching ConsumerReports.org in 1997. Online subscriptions cost 
#    $24 a year or $3.95 a month; subscribers to Consumer Reports 
#    magazine are charged an additional $19 a year for the online 
#    version. The site has more than 560,000 subscribers, making it 
#    one of the more successful premium online properties.
#    
#    Lately, the site has been branching out, offering its reports 
#    through e-commerce sites such as Amazon.com Inc., CNET Networks 
#    Inc. and Yahoo Inc.
#    
#    There are already a variety of services, including comparison
#    -shopping guides such as BizRate.com Inc. and nonprofit 
#    consumer-protection organizations like the Better Business 
#    Bureau's BBBOnline, that are dedicated to promoting responsibility 
#    online.
#    
#    BizRate, which provides its e-commerce ratings information to 
#    ConsumerReports.org, says it is in favor of the new project and 
#    doesn't see it interfering with its own services. For the month 
#    of May, Bizrate.com received about 6.2 million unique visitors, 
#    while ConsumerReports.org had about one million visitors, 
#    according to Jupiter Media Metrix.
#    
#    The Web Credibility Project intends to go beyond ratings. The 
#    group also plans to launch a Web site later this year, name an 
#    advisory board of journalists and e-commerce experts, work with 
#    groups such as the Online News Association and give out annual 
#    awards recognizing the most credible sites on the Web.
#    
#    Online vs. Offline World
#    
#    Still, measuring and regulating the credibility of Internet sites 
#    by asking companies to voluntarily comply with guidelines is 
#    a thorny issue, as the disagreement between Messrs. Brendler 
#    and Amacker over the credibility of the Keep America Beautiful 
#    site illustrates.
#    
#    Although voluntary standards can "help set a tone," American 
#    University's Mr. Cochran says, ultimately each site is responsible 
#    for its own reputation. "You can put a seal of approval on 
#    something, but it wouldn't mean anything until enough time had 
#    passed, and enough circumstances had been experienced, for people 
#    to make up their minds."
#    
#    The goal of getting sites to voluntarily disclose business 
#    relationships is laudable, but runs the risk of holding online 
#    publishers to a higher standard than offline ones, adds Phil 
#    Brooks, a professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, who 
#    notes that most movies include paid placement of products without 
#    disclosing the financial relationship between the studio and 
#    the product maker.
#    
#    "It would be good if there was full, open disclosure of these 
#    kind of marketing practices," Mr. Brooks says. "But as a reality 
#    I don't see that businesses that use online services and digital 
#    media are going to adopt standards that are different than the 
#    standards that are being followed in traditional media."