Programs

  • Program 1 [2020]

    Consumer Legislation Project: In 2020, CEF continued and expanded its investigation of the problems that American consumers face in the modern commercial marketplace. As part of its #REPRESENT project, CEF will publish an exhaustive report discussing the current state of consumer protection law in the United States and recommending reforms. "Reboot Required" will examine the vast changes in the marketplace that have occurred in the decades since consumer protection laws were last comprehensively updated in the United States. These changes include the advent of the Internet, the prevalence of sophisticated technology in consumer products and services, and the dramatic shift to electronic and mobile commerce. The report will comprehensively outline the specific types of corporate abuses that are currently victimizing consumers as a result of these changes.The report will also assess the extent to which state and federal laws and legal remedies, as interpreted and applied by the courts, have failed to keep up with these developments. And it will analyze the currect procedural mechanisms by which consumer rights may be vindicated, such as class actions, and propose changes to enhance the practical rights of consumers to jointly litigate against corporate wrongdoers, and to restore public confidence in the system of justice. "Reboot Required" will be accompanied by an equally detailed model consumer protection law, which would enact the suggested reforms. The report and model law will be published in the fourth quarter of 2021.As part of its focus on the challenges posed by technology, #REPRESENT submitted a detailed petition to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2019, asking the Commission to investigate and act against discriminatory surveillance scores that use private data to secretly penalize Americans. When political inertia appeared likely to derail the petition, #REPRESENT placed an op-ed in the Washington Post that was widely circulated. One of the companies identified in the petition that uses advanced artificial intelligence to evaluate job applicants' competence - voluntarily stopped analyzing facial expressions in its scoring system. A New York Times article based on #REPRESENT's petition exposed a company that scores consumers' "trustworthiness," leading to a consumer backlash that prompted over 8,000 people to ask the company for data on its scoring practices - eventually crashing the company's submission site. The U.S. Government Accountability Office subsequently initiated a study of surveillance scoring in October 2020.
    Geographies
    Not indicated
    Dates
    Jan 1, 2020 – Dec 31, 2020
    Source
    990
    No causes provided
    No populations provided
    –
    $234.1K

  • Program 2 [2020]

    Online Empowerment: Grant to Consumer Watchdog.The CEF provides ongoing support for the work of Consumer Watchdog, a California-based non-profit charitable organization, to develop new models of public participation that encourage Americans to become more directly and deeply involved in public processes and democratic institutions. The organization has continuously developed and expanded a model online citizen participation program that during 2020 engaged in recruitment, training, legislative advocacy, grassroots campaigning, and public education. Consumer Watchdog reported the following activities funded by the CEF grant:A. Educating and activating civic participation online.In 2020, Consumer Watchdog continued its advocacy of e-democracy with another report on citizen access to initiatives. "Sea Change in Sacramento: How Electronic Ballot Signatures Empower Voters" examined a decade and a half of ballot measure activity since 2005 to find that the cost of invoking the initiative process has evolved beyond the capacity of average citizens. All but the wealthiest are now locked out of California's ballot initiative process due to these high costs. The same people who control policymaking in Sacramento also control it at the ballot box. "Sea Change" examined the traditional objections to gathering signatures for ballot measures digitally - security fears, ease of qualifying, and the cost of implementing a statewide database of voters - and determined that two decades of technological advances negate the criticisms. Relatedly, in October 2020, Consumer Watchdog warned that a bill, AB 1415, that would have required at least 10% of signatures be gathered by volunteers, would further undermine citizen access to the ballot. Governor Newsom vetoed that legislation. B. Capital WatchdogIn 2020, Consumer Watchdog's Capital Watchdog project issued a second report on mismanagement at the California state agency responsible for container recycling. The report, "Trashed: How California Recycling Failed and How To Fix It," compared California's failing system to successful bottle deposit programs around the country and the world. It concluded that successful reform must move away from state management by the troubled CalRecycle agency, and shift management and financial responsibility to the beverage industry that creates the waste. Such systems, when overseen by state regulators and enforced with clear goals for container redemption and recycling, deliver much higher redemption and recycling rates for containers. Consumer Watchdog's educational efforts spurred legislative consideration of the report's recommendations. However, the Covid-19 pandemic intervened: it exacerbated California's recycling crisis by forcing the closure of numerous recycling centers at the same time legislative focus on recycling issues shifted to requiring a minimum level of recycled plastics in packaging. California Governor Newsom signed a bill supported by Consumer Watchdog to require that amounts of postconsumer recycled plastic used in deposit-carrying plastic beverage containers sold in California will rise from no less than 15% postconsumer recycled plastic per year in 2022 to no less than 50% beginning in 2030. C. Autonomous Vehicles: Safety, Security and Privacy. Consumer Watchdog has been a leading critic of the testing and deployment of driverless vehicles without proper regulation of the vehicles' safety, security and privacy. The organization's 2019 investigative report, "Kill Switch: Why Connected Cars Can Be Killing Machines and How To Turn Them Off," exposed how mass data collection by conventional cars and integration of digital communications with key safety features of American cars placed every connected car at risk of being hacked. Consumer Watchdog determined that when a car's safety critical systems - brakes, engine, steering - are connected wirelessly there is the possibility of that connection being hacked on a fleet-wide basis. Working with the same team of industry technologists and whistleblowers who informed "Kill Switch," Consumer Watchdog in 2020 investigated the advertising and marketing claims of the best-selling car models, reviewed the technical specifications of the most popular cars, and surveyed dozens of sales departments and service technicians at major auto dealerships. Consumer Watchdog's "Connected Car Report 2020: The Models Most Open to Hacks," concluded that all of Car and Driver's top 10 best-selling cars for 2020 have features that would allow hackers to obtain wireless connectivity to safety critical systems; there is no known way to disconnect those systems. Grantee: Consumer WatchdogAmount: $60,000 Address: 6330 San Vicente Blvd., Suite 250, Los Angeles, CA 90048Contact: Carmen Balber, Executive Director.
    Geographies
    Not indicated
    Dates
    Jan 1, 2020 – Dec 31, 2020
    Source
    990
    No causes provided
    No populations provided
    –
    $60K