U.S. Consumer Product Complaint Database Going Public

The federal government is planning on making its files of customer complaints about products available to the public.

The consumer database is scheduled to be launched in March as part of the SaferProducts.gov Web site, although a Republican member of the commission who voted against the final rule establishing the database says Congress might refuse to fund the project.

In a 3-2 partisan vote, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in November approved a final rule establishing how CPSC will work with consumers and manufacturers or private labelers to process and post incident reports on the database.

The new policy provides the public access to product safety information that the CPSC was previously required to keep behind closed doors until it had been cleared with manufacturers.

Required by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, the database will allow consumers to go online to SaferProducts.gov and file a report telling CPSC about an incident with an unsafe product or potentially hazardous consumer product.

Manufacturers and private labelers will have the opportunity to respond within 10 days with comments and may request that their comments appear with the report in the database.

Where a manufacturer believes that a report is either materially inaccurate or contains confidential information, the company can ask that CPSC correct the record or redact the confidential information.

CPSC will make all of this information visible and searchable online by the public. Anyone will be able to search for reports submitted about consumer products along with any comments the manufacturer requests be included.

Beginning in mid-January 2011, all manufacturers or private labelers of consumer products will be encouraged to pre-register with CPSC to receive timely online access to reports submitted about their products, according to officials.

“The database should be welcomed not just by those with a mission to protect consumers but also by companies that produce consumer products,” according to Inez Tenenbaum, chair of the CPSC, and one of the three Democrats voting in favor of the rule as written. “We believe that responsible companies that produce or sell consumer products will have the opportunity to use this new resource to inform their quality control programs and ensure that safer products are available on store shelves.”

But critics of the CPSC final rule fear the database will give trial lawyers more ammunition to bring lawsuits and that it damage the reputations of some manufacturers.

Anne M. Northrup is one of the two Republicans who voted against the final rule governing the database. She cited problems with too broad a definition of who is allowed to submit reports of harm and problems with the 10-day limit for manufacturers to respond.

“The commission’s misguided decision to implement this version of the final rule will produce a database that wastes taxpayer money, confuses and misleads consumers, raises prices, kills jobs, and damages the reputations of safe and responsible manufacturers,” she said in her dissent.

Northrup warned that the final rule is vulnerable to legal challenge “and possibly a well-deserved decision by Congress to defund operation of the public database.”