“Meaningful transparency of our efforts to respect human rights is a key component to building customer trust. RDR’s Corporate Accountability Index helps to highlight the importance of internet companies’ transparency about policies and practices that advance freedom of expression and privacy.”

— Steve Crown, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Microsoft. 

RDR has already had clear and measurable impact on companies across four editions of the RDR Corporate Accountability Index – in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. By the second RDR Index, more than half the companies ranked by the first RDR Index had improved disclosures and policies affecting privacy and freedom of expression. By the third RDR Index, 17 of the 22 evaluated companies made further positive changes. By the fourth RDR Index in 2019, almost every previously evaluated company had improved their disclosures and policies, with 19 of the 22 making positive changes.

In the 2020 RDR Index, our fifth, we evaluated 26 companies across a new and expanded set of indicators evaluating companies for the first time on indicators related to their targeted advertising and algorithmic systems. Some milestones:

• More companies published human rights commitments: Apple, Chinese search giant Baidu, and Mail.Ru, all released formal commitments to protect users’ human rights.
• Three new companies issued transparency reports on government demands: Yandex and Mail.Ru and MTN released transparency reports. Notably: MTN published its first transparency report ever, citing RDR as a key provider of reporting standards that guided the company’s transparency reporting.
• Two companies—Etisalat and Ooredoo—published privacy policies, after years of our pointing out this basic deficiency in their company report cards.
• Telefónica implemented all three of our recommendations from their 2019 report card, improving policies around security, user information handling, and transparency reporting.

”The scientific rigour with which RDR analyzes our activities and substantiates their findings is simply impressive. RDR helps us a lot in improving our policies and management systems, thus contributing to our common objective of promoting privacy and freedom of expression.”

— Geert Paemen, Director for Sustainability and Non-Financial KPI’s – Global Corporate Ethics and Sustainability Department, Telefónica.

We know many of these changes were spurred by the RDR Index thanks to company surveys and interviews conducted by an independent evaluator in the summer of 2018. The evaluator interviewed 12 company representatives: eight confirmed that their companies had made changes to better align with RDR’s indicators. According to the evaluator, representatives of four companies that are not currently included in the RDR Index stated that “the Index has influenced policies or disclosures or that their company is likely to use the Index to structure policies and disclosures within the next three years.”

Ecosystem of stakeholders

Actions carried out by other stakeholders all contribute to our shared goal: holding the world’s most powerful internet, mobile, and telecommunications companies accountable to human rights standards for freedom of expression and privacy.

Investors

“Investors welcome the RDR Index as a transparent and independent framework for helping investors evaluate risks associated with the management and use of content and personal data by companies providing digital services, highlighting digital rights leadership and good practices, as well as gaps and challenges.”

— Statement by the Investor Alliance for Human Rights, signed by 49 investors

The RDR Index has informed investment decisions of mutual fund companies including Domini and Calvert Investments. Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Investments, and Rockefeller Capital Management are among the major investment firms that have all reached out to us for conversations and presentations that have helped inform their company engagement. RDR research was also cited in an open letter from investors to Facebook as well as a shareholder resolution filed by Arjuna Capital. Several shareholder resolutions filed in 2018 and 2019 called for strengthened board oversight, due diligence, transparency, and corporate reporting on efforts to prevent harm to users – all consistent with standards set by the Index indicators.

Activists

“We use the Index to help us understand the policy and regulatory environments in which we are working, which contributes to our advocacy in particular with respect to companies’ collection and sharing of personal data and internet shutdowns.”

— Chat Garcia Ramilo, Executive Director, Association for Progressive Communications

At least 10 civil society organizations have confirmed to us that they used our data in their interactions with governments, companies, or the public, and at least seven have used the RDR Index to conduct their own rankings. 13 global campaigns have used RDR Index data and findings, and many more advocacy groups have used it as an engagement tool with companies. For example, RDR Index results have been cited in Access Now’s #KeepItOn campaign to support organizations in confronting companies on their lack of strong commitments and disclosures about internet shutdowns.

Researchers

For each RDR Index research cycle, we have trained a team of researchers based in over 20 countries. Many of these researchers have adapted the RDR methodology to evaluate companies in their own countries and regions including India, Russia, Kenya, Senegal, and the Middle East-North Africa region. Internet Sans Frontieres and the Lebanon-based Social Media Exchange have engaged directly with companies about their results in national and regional indexes. Consumer Reports has used the Digital Standard which borrows from the RDR Index indicators to evaluate products such as “smart” TVs and payment apps.

Policymakers

“Ranking Digital Rights provided a sound, diligent approach for researchers here to evaluate and compare the often confusing privacy policies and practices of the largest internet service providers. This critical information provided evidence and encouragement for legislation, introduced in City Council at the request of Mayor de Blasio, that – if enacted – will establish New York City as having the strongest privacy protections for residential cable broadband service of any big city in the country.”

— Samantha Grassle, Senior Manager, NYC Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer

The RDR Index and related research that builds upon it has started to have an impact on policy and law. In the United States, a bill was introduced in September 2018 to the New York City Council that would prohibit cable providers from refusing to provide service to customers who do not consent to the collection of personal information. It was informed in part by the results of a study by The New School’s Digital Equity Lab that adapted the RDR Index methodology to evaluate the city’s major internet service providers.