Consumers Union Web Initiative Research
The Consumers Union, the most prestigious consumer
organization in the country, is seeking to form a consensus on website disclosure
standards. Freelance News Service contracted to develop two lists of participants
for their Consumer WebWatch conference held in early 2003.
The first list provided contact information for the top two internet officers
from each of the top one hundred most popular consumer websites in the United
States.
The second list provided contact information for an additional one hundred and
fifty academians, corporate leaders, financiers and other influencers in a position
to help codify the standards at a summit to be held in 2003. This research required
contacting executive suites in some of the larges companies in the United States.
Data on sixty percent of the first list and thirty-one percent of the second
list were confirmed via telephone and email contacts. Below is a screen shot
from the list of top 200 internet officers with names blanked out, followed
by my summary letter to the head of the project.
Beau Brendler
Consumer WebWatch Director
Consumers Union
101 Truman Avenue
Yonkers, NY 10703-1057
Dec. 15, 2002
Dear Beau,
Here are the two remaining lists I have compiled for you. The first list, 200
Executives-top 100 Websites, was compiled from various traditional and Internet
sources, and each company was contacted at least twice to verify the proper
persons to invite. Over 50% of the companies responded with specific names and
titles, a huge percentage I attribute to the magic of the Consumers Union name.
Several companies gave me more than two names, thus the list totals 206 individuals.
Many websites were subsidiaries or sister sites and in each case I tried to track down decision makers at each organization. In two or three cases one individual was named with a request to forward the second package of material to them. In some cases I was only able to locate one officer, usually when the website was a subsidiary or sister site, but in all cases I provided contact information for the mother company. I should mention that SBC has some sort of partnership with Yahoo in the works and specifically requested that their contacts, under SBC Communications, not be publicized before the first of the year.
The 150 new names (in green) on the 250 Internet Leaders and Experts list were gathered from traditional and Internet sources, with many of the contacts coming from other experts and academians. I included investment experts who have spent their careers investing in the Internet, news persons, both on and off the Internet, and executives from some of the largest media companies in America. I did not include publicly known media figures such as Walter Cronkite as I assumed that he and his peers are on existing lists at CU. I did include a mailing address for Al Gore, though your sources may be able to provide a more direct address.
If you have any questions about the lists, please feel free to call or email. It is possible I'll receive more confirmations over the next week. If so, I'll forward details to you. If there is any further way I can be of assistance to you or the CU, either in clarifying these lists or for any other reason, please don't hesitate to contact me. Much of my expertise is in creating marketing and public relations literature. I greatly enjoyed working this project. I rarely get the kind of cooperation the CU names elicits, and I reveled in helping such a fine organization with such a worthy project.
Sincerely,
William Cracraft
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