Mission statement

The mission of this wiki is to document a new generation of consumer exploitation that bears no resemblance to issues of the 1950s-1990s. Our focus are the issues that often go unnoticed by review sites, tech press, and traditional consumer protection publications.

Consumer me me protection - then vs. now

Old consumer protection

30 years ago, consumer advocacy dealt with more visible problems:

1. Unsafe products
2. Misleading labels
3. False advertising
4. Bait & switch pricing
5. Not delivering goods after payment
6. Lead in toys
7. Discrimination

New consumer protection

Today's consumers face different forms of exploitation that strike at the heart of what it means to own something, and are deliberately designed to be difficult to understand or resist. Above all, unlike the issues above, these issues are not even illegal.

Modern businesses have mastered the art of silent control. They can:

1. Remotely disable products you “own” through cloud services.
2. Collect personal data without meaningful disclosure & sell that data to others without legitimate consent.
3. Prevent you from cancelling their services by creating systems where signing up takes one click, but cancelling requires navigating an obstacle course of sending certified mail and endless phone trees.
4. Redefine the meaning of the word “purchase” and “own” on page 21 of an end user license agreement, creating legal justification for removing items you have “purchased” in your library.
5. Create wilful barriers towards repair, leaving otherwise functional devices to die.
6. Manipulate you into forced arbitration by sending you an email and pretending that not replying to this email constitutes agreement to a new terms of service.

"Old" style consumer protection covers exposing and pursuing companies which break existing laws. Modern consumer protection efforts exist, and are distinct, because the consumer protection laws which currently exist are not fit for purpose. Companies are able to exploit legal loopholes, or legally dubious strategies which are not met with meaningful consequences, to trap their customers in unfavorable positions. They rely on complexity & fatigue to prevent resistance.

These abuses of the consumer have a common thread:

• Take away the consumer's right to say "NO"
• Take away the consumer's right of ownership
• Take away the consumer's right to privacy.

Where we step in

This wiki exists to document and expose these practices, making visible what companies work hard to keep obscure. By creating a centralized knowledge base of modern consumer exploitation tactics, we aim to help consumers understand how their rights are being systematically violated through technology, psychology, deliberately complex legal mechanisms, as well as the ineffective governmental bodies that allow it to happen.

Our goal is to bring clarity to these new practices that companies intentionally make opaque, and to provide consumers with the information they need to recognize and fight back against new forms of exploitation.

How this wiki will be used

It is expected that the wiki will be contributed to by a wide variety of people, both technical and non-technical, who share a desire to see consumers be treated more fairly. It will enable this by being quick and easy to contribute to, with a low barrier to entry for contributors. This barrier to entry should be maintained at the minimum level neccesary to combat spam and bad actors.

The base focus of the wiki is expected to be on issues frequently discussed on Louis Rossmann’s channel, and those adjacent to the right-to-repair movement, though this may grow to a more all-encompassing definition of consumer protection over time. The minimum desired goal is to have a site which records, in a helpful and searchable format, the specific issues and topics which have been discussed on Louis’ channel over the years, with factual citations.

Ideally, it should aim to grow and act as a one-stop-shop, where a user can discover how the companies they buy products from are working against their interests behind the scenes, and what they can do about it. It should serve to highlight how consumer rights have been eroded over the years, and give people the knowledge and tools to fight back against the tide. It will feature both factual documentation relating to specific instances of consumer abuses, articles which track the consumer-protection-related activities of large companies and certain individuals, as well as articles and content which serve to educate users about the different forms of consumer abuse.

The Wiki will aim to be viewed as a legitimate source which, though not perfect, can generally be relied upon to provide accurate information, in a similar vein to other Wiki-projects. It is crucial for the Wiki to take steps to avoid causing harassment or financial harm to companies as a result of false or misleading information. It will enable this by attracting an excellent team of moderators, and giving them powerful and effective tools to combat spam and misinformation. If problems arise in this area, we will treat them with the utmost seriousness, as they may jeporadize the entire project.

In seeking this legitimacy, it is important that the appropriate tone is used. The exact tone which is appropriate for a given article will be defined in the Editorial Guidelines (along with the range of acceptable tones for the wiki as a whole), and will vary based on the type of article. In general, we will aim for professionalism. A project like this cannot obtain or maintain legitimacy if every article comes across as being written by someone with an axe to grind, or by someone who is more interested in proving a point than in the truth.

What makes something appropriate to record within the Wiki?

The line between systematic abuse of customers and an unlucky streak of bad customer experiences is blurry, and can be particularly hard to find for a user who’s just been on the receiving end of bad service. The following guidelines should help you determine whether a particular incident is appropriate for inclusion on the Wiki.

An incident is to be included in the Wiki when one or both of the following is true:

• It fits into the niche of "new" consumer protection - e.g., revocation of rights of ownership, or widespread changes of the terms of the sale. If it is only possible because of these new mechanisms of consumer abuse, then it can be included here. A story relating to a single customer, or a small handful of customers, only rises to the level of being included here if it is relevant to "modern" consumer protection.  Even if it only affected a single customer, the very fact that these things can happen in the first place means that they need to be documented.
  
• It is a large-scale consumer abuse. An old-style consumer protection story only belongs here if it is a systemic practice that is happening to a large group of people. For example, consider Intel's denying of customers warranty replacements for their 14th gen CPUs. This practice, even if it is an "old" style anti-consumer practice (selling a defective product, and ignoring warranties en masse), is something that is systemic & widespread, beyond an individual anecdotal experience. Another relevant example is Asus' warranty policies here.

See the description at the beginning of the Mission Statement to learn what is meant by "new" and "old" consumer issues.

A practice does not belong here if it belongs in a Yelp review:

Louis had a bad experience with a bad technician, salesman, and service writer at Caliber Collision. They lied on timeframes, and they did a poor job of installing new parts on his car. This, however, is not to be included on the Wiki.

Instead, this is an issue to be settled elsewhere, by contacting the local consumer protection/licensing bureau (for instance, Department of Consumer Affairs in New York City), and by providing feedback on Yelp or Google.

1. This does not fit any of the categories above of removing privacy, rights of ownership, taking away the right to repair, or forcing anyone into a terms of service agreement in a sneaky way.
2. There is no evidence that what they did is systemically pushed onto all customers.

Hyper-local, run-of-the-mill issues do not belong here.

A plumber who repeatedly ghosts work, disappears & sets up a new company when people go looking for a refund is not worthy of report here. The story of Eugene the contractor belongs on a personal blog, Yelp, and Google. Reports on his behavior should be made to local, city, state, and federal authorities where they apply. A contractor who sets up a new company any time someone looks for a refund after being ripped off may be an anti-consumer scammer, and it may well be that knowing about him would prevent future people from getting scammed. However, this is simply too small and local to warrant inclusion in a wiki whose purpose is specifically to inform consumers about the modern landscape of consumer protection issues.

Editorial guidelines

Detailed below are the two main 'tones' which are acceptable within the wiki, as well as examples of the article types in which they should be used.

Factual, non-accusatory, and legally safe

• Factual statements in articles should only be made where they directly reference a source. Direct inferences from these statements may be made, in a non-accusatory manner.
• Source commentators often bring opinions, rants, and diatribes that add commentary & entertainment value; that is for their content. This is a repository of information, and to be taken seriously, it must avoid coming off as the expression of an individual's personality.
• Articles should not include language directly condemning specific companies or named individuals. Instead, this should be achieved this by citing others – ‘it has been claimed that this practice amounts to x or y’, and by use of qualifiers ‘This shares characteristics with x’. 
  
• No attribution of malice to the subjects of criticism, unless such malice has been established in a legal context or by a legitimate regulatory body. Even then, it should always be stated indirectly: 'The supreme court found that Company X...', rather than 'Company X did...'
  
• This will be the appropriate tone for most articles surrounding specific instances of anti-consumer behaviour, and for articles concerning companies or individuals.

'Nice Louis'

• The way Louis would speak in a Senate hearing. Passionate advocacy, but avoiding strong language, or causing unnecessary offense. Where argumentation is used, it is clear and direct.
• No direct attacks on named individuals or companies, but likely to be strong condemnation of specific practices, while citing the companies that do them. Malice may be attributed to bad and proven offenders, in a formal and calm manner.
• This is the appropriate tone for explanatory theme articles which cover larger issues relating to consumer protection, and is not specifically related to individual practices by individual companies, except where these are used as examples.
• This tone is not appropriate for the more factual accounts expected of individual Incidents.

Minor revisions may be made to these guidelines from time to time, but they are expected to remain consistent with the Mission Statement, and the broad rules of thumb established here.

The 'Granny rule' (or, the 'Senator rule')

The Wiki aims to be a widely accessible source where the general consumer can learn about the issues that affect them, and where relevant regulatory or political figures can be directed for a full explanation of the issues they have sight over. In general, a good rule of thumb to use when writing for the Wiki will be 'would I be comfortable showing this article to my grandmother?'

This has two main implications:

• Avoid using inflammatory language. This includes quotations: swear words should be censored, and where a supporting quotation is required for an article, writers should try to choose ones that convey the relevant information without appearing combative.
• Avoid unnecessary technical detail. This is not a tech Wiki, and as far as possible, writers should avoid diving into technological detail. Where technical explanations are required to properly articulate the events of an Incident (for example, describing the events of the Honey scandal would require an explanation of site tracking via links, and Cookies), care should be taken to ensure that they are as accessible as possible. The use of jargon should be avoided, and technical terms should be defined in each article where they appear.

Examples of unacceptable content includes:

• Strong and unfiltered language
• Deep dives into the technical functionality of a product at the centre of an Incident
• Unsourced 'facts', and excessive use of disreputable sources
• The tone and language Louis might use in a rant video
• Direct insults to specific individuals or companies, or direct attribution of malice to said individuals or companies
• This wiki is not for "Pissed off Louis" - that's for YouTube, and has no place here

We will be especially vigilant against potentially harmful content, and take strong action againt users who:

• Advocate for direct action against malicious companies or individuals within articles themselves
• Add false or misleading information to the Wiki, particularly that which may be damaging to companies or individuals
• Invent sources or quotes
• Write articles which feature a blasé attitude toward the expression of extremely strong, or even violent, sentiment towards named individuals and companies

Editorial Q&As

Is it acceptable to, in an article detailing the faults with a particular product, direct users towards alternative products which do not share these issues?

This wiki is not a place for product recommendations, and cannot be turned into a place for sneaky guerilla advertising, or the promotion of contributors' pet projects.

The only acceptable reason to include a product in an article which is not focussed on said product, is to directly demonstrate that an anti-consumer practice is unnecessary. This exception is made in order to combat the way that unscrupulous companies will attempt to muddy the water, by claiming that their practices are necessary for the product to be viable. We do not want a company to be able to defend a practice as "necessary" on the basis of made-up justifications of economic viability or legal necessity, and as such it is acceptable to mention a competing product or business, ONLY for the purpose of comparing & contrasting how another business in the same space is able to provide the product or service without screwing the customer.

• If a company says "the only way we can offer a $500 OLED television is by selling your personal data": it would be acceptable to point to a company that does not include such terms in their EULA/TOS, and which provides the same product at the same price point.
• If a company says "we cannot make xyz repair information available due to laws regarding consumer safety": it is acceptable point to a company in that same industry, who provide repair information without legal consequence.

Article types

Given that the overall mission involves the need to inform people about the practices of companies, individuals, and industries in general, as well as provide detailed information about specific events, I propose the following page ‘classes’, which are loosely grouped into a three-tier informational hierarchy. Our goal here is to create something sensible and navigable, which will lead to link-based navigation through the site being a pleasant experience, and people being easily able to google for the information they want to find.

Tier 1: Themes and Sources

Themes

Themes are a high-level type of article, which primarily aims to explain and justify core concepts and challenges for consumer protection. For example, you would have a Theme article explaining forced arbitration, or the EULA roofie - how it works, why it’s a problem, and some examples of harm caused. These should be great articles for people to link others to when trying to tell them why a certain practice is harmful.

Theme articles may be a useful tool for determining what is and isn’t suitable for inclusion in the wiki. We are considering a future rule, that any incident discussed should link to one or more Themes (this rule is obviously on the backburner until a sufficient range of Theme articles have been written). Theme articles will be subjected to a higher level of protection than average articles, as it is important that they are high-quality.

These articles should be written with the 'Nice Louis' editorial standard in mind.

Sources

Source articles are articles which detail a source of information for the Wiki – these articles will contain a source, an explanation of who that source is and why they produce content which should be adapted, and a list of ‘stuff that you could probably make a wiki article about’. Obvious non-Louis sources may include GamersNexus, or other print sources/websites that are good at standing up for consumers. Ideally, this should be achieved in cooperation with said sources.

Tier 2: Companies, People, and Product Line articles (or 'entity' articles)

This tier of articles may well be the most useful to the casual reader. This is where someone who googles [insert thing here] consumer protection wiki will usually end up. For example, "LG controversies consumer protection wiki".

 Entity articles should contain:

• A brief overview of the relevant entity, how big it is, and what it does.
• A rough appraisal of their attitude towards consumer protection, perhaps using a tiered rating system ranging from ‘good’ to ‘predatory’.
• A short paragraph for each of the very largest controversies of that entity.
• A list or table directing users to the pages covering their controversies and practices.
• For people, perhaps a side-box containing all the previous positions they’ve held (so you can see, for example, if the new head of a company was previously working somewhere notorious, such as Adobe).

For companies which are truly giant, such as Apple, it may make sense to not have a list of everything they’ve ever done all on their home page, instead linking to their various product lines, which then have the controversy lists.

These articles should be written with the 'Factual, non-accusatory, and legally safe' tone.

Articles about specific individuals will be held to higher standards than the average article. For an individual to have an article on this wiki, it must be shown that they are directly relevant to a large number of consumer-protection related issues, and have, or had, major decision-making capability over these issues. Non-compliant 'person' articles will be moderated heavily, and deleted on sight.

Tier 3: Incident pages and (potentially) Product pages

Incident page

An Incident page will cover an event, or chain of events, which surrounds one instance of anti-consumer activity (or anything else relevant to the wiki). These will make up the bulk of the pages on the wiki, though likely not the bulk of the traffic. These pages should be able to be referred to as something of a ‘historical record’ and should have a good deal of factual content relating to the event(s) in question, complete with links to, and citations of, various contemporary sources.

The key components of an incident page will be:

• The business practice in question.
• An explanation of the harm caused by the business practice, along with a link/reference to any relevant Themes.
• A brief history of how the practice came to the public’s attention.
• The immediate aftermath of the incident, and the company’s reaction to it (this will be short in most cases, but may be substantial if there was a protracted legal battle or something).
• Whether the offending party continues the anti-consumer practice to this day, or whether they have changed.

These Incident pages are the areas where citations and ‘receipts’ in general will be most important, as they will form the factual basis for the conclusions reached in the Tier 2 articles discussing the companies and people involved.

They should be written with the 'Factual, non-accusatory, and legally safe' tone.

Product page

It has not yet been decided whether pages dedicated to individual products are an appropriate ambition for the Wiki. There are, after all, an awful lot of products in the world.

Contributor's note: With regards to the potential for Product pages, I think this is something that needs to be sorted out on the vision and mission statement side of things. Do we want to have a page for almost every device, which just says ‘yeah, this one’s fine’ up until the point at which more information comes out about it or someone decides to look into it? Do we create pages which highlight good behaviour, as well as bad behaviour? Do we expect the wiki to be so comprehensive that people will search [ProductName] CP wiki and expect to see a page for whatever product they’re thinking of buying? Once we know what the goal is, we can decide how to handle product pages. Do we have an ambition to scan the TOS of every product out there for concerning clauses?

The need may emerge for other page types, but please use this framework to provide structure and guidance while developing and contributing to the Wiki.