In case you missed it...

This week, the Washington Post had a front-page article on the looming public database, including a balanced look at industry’s concerns. I did contact the reporter to clarify one key issue:

The article reads, “If a company says a complaint is false or would disclose confidential business information, the CPSC will decide whether to withhold or publish the complaint.” Well…not exactly. Unfortunately, the reporter was led to believe that the agency would be able to resolve all reports of material inaccuracy within the 10 period time period. This is completely unlikely.

On the contrary, the Commission has decided not to exercise any discretion and to go ahead and put up claims even where there is a material inaccuracy claim pending past 10 days. For example, if a manufacturer knows that the product in question is not theirs and files such a claim on the 9th day , it is highly unlikely that the Commission will even be able to resolve the claim by the end of the 10th day (let alone any other pending claims that week)—resulting in the inaccurate report still going up on the database.

And you guessed it—inaccurate information about a manufacturer or their product on a “.gov” database is not only detrimental to the manufacturer, but it is useless to consumers using the database.…