The 2020 RDR Corporate Accountability Index will evaluate the 26 companies listed below. We select companies on the basis of several factors, including geographic reach and the diversity of markets in which the companies are headquartered and operating.
Researchers will examine overarching “parent” company policies and practices, in addition to the disclosed policies and practices of selected services and/or local operating companies, depending on company structure.
Digital platform companies*: The 2020 RDR Index will evaluate 14 digital platform companies. This includes all of the 12 digital platform companies evaluated in previous RDR Index rankings plus two new companies, Amazon and Alibaba.
For each of these companies we evaluate global group-level policies for relevant indicators, along with each company’s policies within its home country. For each company we examine up to five services, as follows:
- Alibaba (China) — Taobao.com (e-commerce platform); AliGenie (personal digital assistant ecosystem)
- Amazon (US) — Amazon.com (e-commerce platform); Amazon Alexa (personal digital assistant ecosystem), Amazon Drive
- Apple (US) — iOS mobile ecosystem, iMessage, iCloud
- Baidu (China) — Baidu Search, Baidu Cloud, Baidu PostBar
- Facebook (US) — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger
- Google (US) — Search, Gmail, YouTube, Android mobile ecosystem, Google Drive
- Kakao (South Korea) — Kakao Search, Kakao Mail, KakaoTalk
- Mail.Ru (Russia) — VKontakte, Mail.ru email, Mail.ru Agent messaging, Mail.Ru Cloud
- Microsoft (US) — Bing, Outlook.com, Skype, OneDrive
- Oath (US) — Yahoo Mail, Tumblr
- Samsung (South Korea) — Samsung implementation of Android, Samsung Cloud
- Tencent (China) — QZone, QQ, WeChat, Tencent Cloud
- Twitter (US) — Twitter
- Yandex (Russia) — Yandex Mail, Yandex Search, Yandex Disk (cloud storage)
*Due to the expansion of the 2020 RDR Index to include new services offered by Amazon and Alibaba—specifically, e-commerce platforms and personal digital assistant ecosystems—we will now refer to this as the “digital platforms” category (it was previously named “internet and mobile ecosystems”.) The scope of the digital platforms category includes various products and services offered by internet companies, as well as mobile ecosystems, e-commerce platforms, and personal digital assistant ecosystems.
Telecommunications companies: The 2020 RDR Index will rank all of the 12 telecommunications companies we previously ranked. No new telecommunications companies have been added for the 2020 research cycle.
For each of these companies we evaluate global group-level policies for relevant indicators plus the home-country operating subsidiary’s prepaid and postpaid mobile service, and fixed-line broadband service where offered, as follows:
- América Móvil (Mexico): Telcel (pre- and postpaid mobile)
- AT&T (U.S.): AT&T (pre- and postpaid mobile, broadband)
- Axiata (Malaysia): Celcom (pre- and postpaid mobile, broadband)
- Bharti Airtel (India): Airtel India (pre-and postpaid mobile, broadband)
- Deutsche Telekom AG (Germany): Deutsche Telekom (pre- and postpaid mobile, broadband)
- Etisalat (UAE): Etisalat UAE (pre- and postpaid mobile, broadband)
- MTN (South Africa): MTN South Africa (pre- and postpaid mobile, broadband)
- Ooredoo (Qatar): Ooredoo Qatar (pre- and postpaid mobile, broadband)
- Orange (France): Orange France (pre- and postpaid mobile, broadband)
- Telefónica (Spain): Movistar (pre- and postpaid mobile, broadband)
- Telenor ASA (Norway): Telenor (pre- and postpaid mobile, broadband)
- Vodafone (UK): Vodafone UK (pre- and postpaid mobile, broadband)
View and download the 2020 RDR Index methodology: https://rankingdigitalrights.org/2020-indicators
Read a summary of our research process: https://rankingdigitalrights.org/2020-research-process
