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consumer-reports-innovation-lab / TheDigitalStandard

The Digital Standard is an ambitious, community-led effort to build a framework to test and rate products and services on the basis of privacy, security, and data practices.
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Governance and Compliance #158

Open milesjamz opened 4 years ago

milesjamz commented 4 years ago

Transparency over a company's business model really cuts to the core of the issue of most tech products - while I understand some opacity is needed to account for market competition, I think most people never take into consideration how all of the free tech products and services they use every day somehow have multi billion dollar market capitalization, despite never charging the user for any services. Giving the user a comprehensive picture of how the service they are using earns money solves the problems of understanding data security, privacy, etc., because it lies at the heart of all other problems.

stephtngu-CR commented 4 years ago

@ginnyfahs do you have any thoughts on @milesjamz's comments - how we can improve the governance and compliance section of the Digital Standard? cc: @benrito

ginnyfahs commented 4 years ago

Agree with @milesjamz that most consumers do not consider the business models behind the free products they use. But if/when consumers do become curious about this, they should be able to find the answer on the company's website.

Two tactical things companies can do include: