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Tue 4 Nov, 2003 07:10 am
I am always pleased to find organizations that develop standards for an industry. My belief that self-policing is far better than government interference. Therefore, I was delighted when I read about Consumerwebwatch.
Consumer Webwatch is a division of Consumer's Union, the organization which publishes Consumer Reports. Consumerwebwatch has developed five guidelines that help prevent confusion, deception and fraud on the Internet. So far, 95 companies have pledged to uphold those guidelines.
Quote:Web Sites Take the Pledge
Since March of 2003, dozens of Web sites have volunteered to "take the Consumer WebWatch pledge," to strive to abide by Consumer WebWatch's five general guidelines for improving Web site credibility.
After taking the pledge, sites were reviewed by Consumer WebWatch to determine whether they provided the level of detail and disclosure called for in our guidelines, and called for by consumers in our continuing research. Our set of five guidelines is, of course, broad, because it is intended to apply to all Web sites, though there are literally hundreds of types of sites........
The site has a list of those companies, as well as other information of interest to Internet users.
Check it out at www.consumerwebwatch.org
What do you think of the concept? Would you feel more secure dealing with a company who has taken "the pledge"?
Charli- I don't know what can be done to monitor this, but I think that it is a good start. I would expect that those sites that choose to sign the "pledge" are those who are least likely to go against it.
I think that companies would have a certain pride in being on the list. If consumers started to complain about a company so that they were taken off the list, that certainly would be a black eye for the firm.
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