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 protection - then vs. now

Old consumer protection

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

Unsafe products
Misleading labels
False advertising
Bait & switch pricing
Not delivering goods after payment
Lead in toys
Discrimination

New consumer protection

Today's consumers face different forms of exploitation that strike at the heart of what it means to own something, 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:

Remotely disable products you “OWN” through cloud services.
Collect personal data without meaningful disclosure & sell that data to others without legitimate consent.
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.
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.
Create willful barriers towards repair, leaving otherwise functional devices to die.
Force 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.

Past consumer protection covered companies that broke existing laws. Modern consumer protection exists because we no longer have consumer protection laws, where companies exploit legal loopholes to trap their customers in unfavorable positions. They rely on complexity & fatigue to prevent resistance.

Theme of modern consumer abuse issues

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 (aka, “how you’re getting fucked”), 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 should enable this by being quick and easy to contribute to.

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.

It should act as a one-stop-shop, where a user can discover how the companies they buy products from are working behind the scenes to screw them, 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 should aim to be viewed as a legitimate source which, though not perfect, can generally be relied upon to provide accurate information (similarly to Wikipedia). It must take steps to avoid causing harassment or financial harm to companies as a result of false or misleading information. It should enable this by attracting an excellent team of moderators, and giving them powerful and effective tools to combat spam and misinformation.

[Insert statements on the tone the wiki should aim to convey things in, once this is decided]

What should & shouldn't be included here

Comparing companies & products

Questions:

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?

guy who wrote this in discord:

I think this is a double-edged sword – it aligns with the mission of inflicting financial penalties on bad companies and rewarding good companies/projects, but it opens the door to abuse, people recommending their own product at someone else’s expense, and vicious arguments in the talk page over exactly which user’s pet f/oss project should be recommended instead.

louis thoughts:

I think this should be done to the extent necessary to combat fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I 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.

I am okay with another product being mentioned for the purposes of comparing & contrasting how another business in the same space is able to provide the product or service without screwing the customer.

i.e., if a company says "the only way we can offer a $500 OLED television is by selling your personal data": it would be okay to point to a company that does not include such terms in their EULA/TOS that 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" - point to a company in that same industry providing repair parts/information.

What makes something worth an article in this wiki?

The line between systematic abuse of customers and an unlucky streak of bad customer experiences is a blurry line, which will be particularly hard for a user who’s just been on the receiving end of bad service to navigate.

An individual story only rises to the level of being included here if it fits the specific elements of modern consumer protection. An old-style consumer protection story only belongs here if it is a systemic practice that is happening to a large group of people. See the description at the beginning to learn what is meant by "modern" vs. "old style".

A practice is bad enough to warrant inclusion when one of the following is true:

It fits into the niche of "new" consumer protection - i.e., widespread revocation of rights of ownership, widespread changes of the terms of the sale. Even a sock company forcing forced arbitration on its users via an email is worth inclusion because it is being inflicted on all users, as well as fitting under the umbrella of these new issues that have been foregone by modern consumer protection, and it affects EVERY CUSTOMER of that company.

Take what Intel was doing by denying customers warranty replacements on the 14th gen Intel CPUs. This practice, even if it is "old" style consumer protection (defective product w/ mass ignoring of warranties), is something that is systemic & widespread, beyond an individual anecdotal experience. Take Asus' warranty policies here or Intel's 14th gen oxidation & avoidance of warranty.

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

I 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 my car.

This is an issue to be settled between my local consumer protection/licensing bureau that oversees the licensing of small businesses (for instance, Department of Consumer Affairs in New York City), and to be reviewed on Yelp or Google.

This does not fit any of the categories above of removing privacy, rights of ownership, taking away my right to repair, or forcing me into terms of service agreement in a sneaky way.
There is no evidence that what they did to me 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 getting screwed is 100% an anti-consumer scammer, where knowing about him would prevent future people from getting scammed. However, this is simply too small and local to warrant inclusion in a wiki deemed specifically to inform consumers about the modern landscape of consumer protection issues.

Editorial guidelines

Facts only

The only statements made in an article should directly reference a source. There should be no attempt to interpret or explain, beyond direct factual inferences. The truest form of ‘we’re just giving you information, and we’re not going to tell you what to think’.
Louis' videos often bring opinions, rants, and diatribes that add commentary & entertainment value; that is for the video. This is a repository of information, and to be taken seriously, it must avoid coming off as the expression of an individual's personality.

Legalese hedging

Does not include language directly condemning specific companies or named individuals. Instead, achieves 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 direct attribution of malice to the subjects of criticism, unless such malice has been established in a legal context or by a legitimate regulatory body.
Remember, this is not supposed to be a written version of Louis Rossmann's YouTube channel; but rather a repository of information.

Think 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.
Unlikely to be direct attacks on named individuals or companies, but likely to be strong condemnation of specific practices, while citing the companies that do them. Malice attributed to the worst offenders, in a formal and calm manner.

Pissed off Louis

Strong and unfiltered language.
The way Louis might speak in a rant video.
There will be direct insults to specific individuals or companies, and attribution of malice to said individuals or companies.

NO LUIGI'S MANSION!

We will not allow advocacy for direct action against malicious companies within articles themselves.
We will not tolerate blasé attitudes toward the expression of extremely strong, or even violent, sentiment towards named individuals and companies.

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

I would consider Themes to be 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.

I think Theme articles can be a useful tool for determining what is and isn’t suitable for inclusion in the wiki. It could be a rule, for example, that any incident discussed should link to one or more Themes. If this is implemented, the creation of Themes should be subject to a high level of scrutiny.

Sources

Source articles are articles that fit the mould of Louis’ video list – these will be articles that 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 Lines

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 should end up. For example, "LG television sell data consumer protection wiki". My basic idea for pages like this is that they 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 might make sense to not have a giant 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.

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 fuckery (or anything else relevant to the wiki). Most of the videos on the list will likely correspond to an incident page. 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.

Product page

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?

I have no doubt that the need for other kinds of page will arise, but I hope that this framework can provide some structure when thinking about how a user will experience the wiki.