Yonkers, NY - Craig Newmark Philanthropies and Omidyar Network announced a new partnership with Consumer Reports to advance consumer privacy and strengthen data rights in the United States. With additional support from these two organizations, Consumer Reports will work to further efforts to press for stronger consumer privacy laws and to pioneer new solutions that help consumers take control of their data. 

One of CR’s top privacy priorities is the landmark California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which went into effect in January 2020. This first-in-the-nation privacy law grants California consumers important new rights, including the rights to access, delete, and stop the sale of their information. The CCPA also creates a new scope for innovation, including provisions that enable consumers to designate third parties as “authorized agents'' that can submit access, deletion, and opt out requests on their behalf. This funding will help support the work of CR’s Digital Lab to better examine this provision, while advocating for stronger enforcement of the new law.

“We partnered with Craig Newmark Philanthropies to launch the Digital Lab just over one year ago to champion consumers’ digital rights and to build greater trust and accountability in the digital marketplace. We have made great strides in shining a light on opaque and harmful practices. This critical new investment will allow us to expose more hidden risks in the products and services we use everyday, push for new and improved consumer-centric rules and standards, and create powerful new tools to further empower people in the digital age,” said Marta Tellado, President and CEO at Consumer Reports.

With support from Craig Newmark Philanthropies and Omidyar Network, CR’s Digital Lab will prototype and test innovative tools and services to help consumers exercise these new rights. This work will help build the nascent technical ecosystem around data rights in the U.S., and identify new ways CR might enhance consumers’ individual privacy and increase transparency in the digital marketplace.

“Internet-connected devices can entertain us or help us get through the day, but we need help dealing with the downside of such devices, like security and privacy. Consumer Reports has been helping people deal with new technology, even way back when washing machines were high tech. They're the right trustworthy partner to help us deal with these issues,” said Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist and Craig Newmark Philanthropies and former board member of Consumer Reports.

“For more than 80 years, Consumer Reports has fought for a fair and just marketplace. This project will help its members meaningfully exercise their data rights to shape the marketplace in support of digital rights, and ultimately, online safety, sustainability, and financial equity,” said Anamitra Deb, Senior Director of Omidyar Network’s Responsible Technology team. 

CR has played a leading role in advocating for privacy legislation at the state and federal levels and ensuring that new landmark laws like the CCPA work as intended for consumers. CR defended the CCPA from being weakened by a number of industry-supported bills in the 2019 legislative session, and fought on consumers’ behalf to strengthen the CCPA (including the California Privacy Rights Act, a recently-ratified ballot initiative to advance privacy rights). CR has documented companies’ questionable approaches to compliance with the CCPA since it went into effect in January 2020. A CR-led participatory research study also found that opt-out processes can be so onerous that they substantially impair consumers’ ability to opt out.

“We’re excited about the generous investments from Omidyar Network and Craig Newmark Philanthropies,” said Ben Moskowitz, the Director of the Digital Lab at Consumer Reports. “Their support and partnership will enable us to grow our work and advance data rights through focused advocacy, policy research, and product development.”

About the Digital Lab
The Digital Lab at Consumer Reports is a growing hub where technologists, lawyers and journalists are working together to advance consumer rights in today’s marketplace. The Digital Lab also appoints non-resident fellows to advance public interest technology research. Learn more at lab.cr.org.

About Craig Newmark Philanthropies
Craig Newmark Philanthropies was created by craigslist founder Craig Newmark to support and connect people and drive broad civic engagement. It works to advance grassroots organizations that are getting stuff done in areas that include trustworthy journalism & the information ecosystem, voter protection, gender diversity in technology, and veterans & military families. For more information, please visit: CraigNewmarkPhilanthropies.org.

About Omidyar Network
Established by philanthropists Pam and Pierre Omidyar, Omidyar Network is a social change venture that has committed more than $1 billion to innovative for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations since 2004. Omidyar Network works to reimagine critical systems and the ideas that govern them, and to build more inclusive and equitable societies in which individuals have the social, economic, and democratic power to thrive.