Innovation at CR

AskCR is an experimental chatbot that helps people get to CR’s trusted information faster. It’s our first step toward building a pro-consumer AI agent.

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Fellow Led

A Cryptocurrency Exchange

Innovation Lab Fellowship Spotlight, Fellow Ruby Thelot and a Cryptocurrency Exchange Study

Innovation Lab fellow Ruby Thelot researches the guiding principles and criteria that should be examined when evaluating the security of cryto-currency exchanges so consumers can make informed decisions when selecting an exchange.

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Fellow Led

The Bad Ads Project

Innovation Lab Fellowship Spotlight, Fellow Franzi Roesner and the Bad Ads Project

Innovation Lab fellow Franzi Roesner is improving the ad ecosystem for consumers while balancing its financial importance for the content that depends on it.

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Fellow Led

Android Observatory

Innovation Lab Fellowship Spotlight, Fellow Julien Gamba and the Android Observatory

Innovation Lab fellow Julie Gamba explores the attribution, privacy and security aspects of the Android ecosystem

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Fellow Led

The Mon(IoT)r Lab Testbed

Innovation Lab Fellowship Spotlight, Fellow Daniel Dubois and the Mon(IoT)r Lab Testbed

Innovation Lab fellow Daniel Dubois is measuring and protecting consumer IoT privacy at scale

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Fellow Led

The Princeton Ad Observatory

Innovation Lab Fellowship Spotlight, Fellow Arunesh Mathur and the Princeton Ad Observatory

Innovation Lab fellow Arunesh Mathur is studying the characteristics of digital ads and drawing public attention towards problematic ads.

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Active

Data Rights Protocol

Laws like CCPA create a new class of data rights, but they’re hard for consumers to exercise.

In summer 2021, the CR began work on a “Data Rights Protocol” (DRP) that seeks to standardize the technical interchange of data rights requests.

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Active

IoT Nutrition Labels

What if all connected devices sold came with the equivalent of a privacy & cybersecurity “nutritional label”?

Instead of telling consumers how many calories a product has, or how much it costs to power, an security and privacy label would communicate things like what kinds of data the product collects, how long the product will receive security updates, and other important information to help consumers make informed decisions. CR is currently working with partner organizations to bring this idea to life.

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Graduated

Fight for Fair Internet

In 2022, CR launched the Fight for Fair Internet project. We partnered with consumers and organizations across the country to collect and analyze consumer internet bills.

CR collected data directly from monthly internet bills sent to and paid by real consumers. CR’s analysis of tens of thousands of bills showed costs vary widely—and charges can be higher when people have fewer providers to choose from.

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Fellow Led

Home Data Inspector

Innovation Lab Fellowship Spotlight, Fellow Danny Huang and the Home Data Inspector

Innovation Lab fellow Danny Huang is helping users identify potential security and privacy vulnerabilities of their connected smart home devices.

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Fellow Led

VPNalyzer

Innovation Lab Fellowship Spotlight, Fellow Roya Ensafi and VPNalyzer

Innovation Lab fellow Roya Ensafi is investigating the VPN providers to inform practical regulations and standards and enforce accountability and transparency in the VPN ecosystem.

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Fellow Led

Data Nutrition Project

Innovation Lab Fellowship Spotlight, Fellow Kasia Chmielinski and the Data Nutrition Project

Innovation Lab fellow Kasia Chmielinski is encouraging the responsible development of artificial intelligence by helping data scientists understand what’s inside datasets before they’re used to train machine learning models.

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Graduated

Dark Patterns Tip Line

The Dark Patterns Tip Line is a platform where people can share and explore deceptive design tactics they see online.

Led by researcher Stephanie Nguyen, the Dark Patterns Tip Line allows participants to upload a screenshot and description of a deceptive design they encountered online, along with information about how they were harmed.

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Graduated

Free Food

Free Food, led by Hacker-in-Residence Noah Levenson, is a decentralized system and open protocol for aggregated local e-commerce, with a specific focus on restaurants.

Free Food enables restaurants to effortlessly self-organize as a geosearchable marketplace. Using the Free Food protocol, a hungry person can search for nearby restaurants, browse menus, and place an order with one click — without paying fees to a centralized middleman, transacting directly with small businesses.

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Active

Permission Slip

In 2022, CR launched Permission Slip, a mobile app that makes it easy to take control of your personal data.

The app shows you what kinds of data companies collect, and lets you decide what to do. With a simple tap, you can tell a company to stop selling your data or to delete your data entirely.

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Active

Security Planner

Keep your data secure with a personalized plan

Some of the most intimate aspects of our lives unfold through devices and online services. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the challenge of staying safe online. Many popular digital security guides fall short because they are not regularly updated or provide recommendations that may not be useful to everyone. That’s where CR’s Security Planner comes in.

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Graduated

The Digital Standard

How can we evaluate the privacy and security of connected products?

CR led the development of the Digital Standard, a framework to evaluate how technologies respect consumers' interests. The Digital Standard was built openly and strives to represent the expert consensus of consumer protection organizations and public interest technology researchers. It is now used by a wide range of organizations and product teams to enable comparative evaluations of connected products and services.

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“I wanted to join a community that shared my values and could help expand the scope and impact of my work.”

Kasia Chmielinski

Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University

Data Nutrition Project

“As an academic working on research project its a pleasure to see a project used by CR to produce resources for the public”

Roya Ensafi

Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan

VPNalyzer

"It’s been great working on a new technology and receiving support from CR to build a framework for consumers to approach cryptocurrency platforms more safely."

Ruby Thelot

Parsons School of Design

A Cryptocurrency Exchange

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Contact us

Questions? Ideas? Want to help us build a better and fairer marketplace?

Please be in touch:

innovationlab@cr.consumer.org