WebWatch has received the following honors:
- Winner, 2004, National Magazine Award (as part of Consumer Reports magazine reporting team) for Leisure Interests -- "Veterinary Care Without the Bite."
- Finalist, 2004, Online News Association award for Enterprise Journalism -- "Small Sites for "Booking and Bidding Sight Unseen."
- Finalist, 2003, Online News Association award for Service Journalism -- "Affiliated for "Spyware."
WebWatch Presentations & Position Papers
WebWatch was invited to a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) workshop analyzing the marketing of goods and services through negative option offers. You can view a PDF of WebWatch director Beau Brendler's presentation here.
WebWatch was invited to present a position paper at an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) workshop. You can view a PDF of WebWatch's paper here.
WebWatch Director Beau Brendler participated in a two-day Malware Workshop sponsored by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Manila, The Philippines. You can view a PDF of his presentation here.
ICANN held its 31st International Public Meeting in New Delhi, where WebWatch Director Beau Brendler, a member of ICANN's At-Large Advisory Committee, submitted WebWatch's comments on ICANN Joint Project Agreement with U.S. Commerce Department. You can view a PDF of those comments here.
WebWatch Recognition & Affiliations
WebWatch's credibility guidelines have been published in the U.S. State Department publication eJournalUSA. The March 2006 issue, "Media Emerging," links to the guidelines from the heading "What Every e-Consumer Should Know: A prominent U.S. consumer advocacy group offers guidelines for avoiding fraud and deception online." The journal is translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Persian and Chinese.
WebWatch also serves as an unpaid special adviser to StopBadware.org, a "Neighborhood Watch" initiative led by Harvard University's Berkman Center and the Oxford Internet Institute devoted to helping Internet users avoid downloading malicious spyware, adware and malware programs.
WebWatch is a member of the W3C consortium for developing Internet standards; the Internet Society, a grass-roots group focused on Internet policy; and is an at-large structure (ALS) in the user community of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigning Names and Numbers.
WebWatch Statements to the ICANN on Behalf of Internet Users
Statement on GNSO report on gTLDs
Why is this important to consumers? ICANN plans to allow many more generic top level domains (gTLDs, like .com, org, .edu). Its process for bringing this about resulted in a paper from the GNSO (Generic Names Supporting Organization, which, within ICANN, develops policy on the domain name system, or DNS) that lacked important detail in implementation. This statement considers the issues of confusion, instability, and possibility of abusive and fraudulent use.
Statement on registrar accreditation agreement
Why is this important to consumers? The registrar accreditation agreement (RAA) is what helps bind domain name registrars to contracted activities. The terms by which consumers register domain names for themselves are contained within the contractual agreement. The RAA is also noteworthy for what it does not contain, which is binding language that enforces contractual terms and creates incentives for compliance.
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