Ranking Digital Rights
We evaluate the world’s most powerful tech and telecom companies on how effectively they protect people’s fundamental human rights to freedom of expression and privacy.
Aim
Ranking Digital Rights aims to promote freedom of expression and privacy on the internet by creating global standards and incentives for companies to respect and protect users’ rights to free expression and privacy. Over more than a decade of history, RDR has laid the groundwork for tech accountability by demanding transparency from both Big Tech and dominant telecommunications companies, scrutinizing their services, and inspiring others to do the same.
Ranking Digital Rights was founded in 2013 by Rebecca MacKinnon, author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom. MacKinnon’s book became the source code for RDR, foreseeing the dangers of a world in which “the corporations and governments that build, operate, and govern cyberspace are not being held sufficiently accountable for their exercise of power over the lives and identities of people who use digital networks.” In 2024, RDR transitioned to the WBA to pursue our shared mission of advancing corporate accountability.
The 2022 RDR Corporate Accountability Index
See resultsMethodology
RDR’s methodology offers a road map companies can use to improve. It also provides a tool for researchers, advocates, policymakers, and investors to push companies in the right direction.
See the Ranking Digital Rights MethodologyMilestones
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RDR is founded by Rebecca MacKinnon
2013
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RDR's first Corporate Accountability Index is published
November 2015
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Algorithmic and targeted advertising indicators are added to RDR's methodology
2020
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RDR publishes the Big Tech and Telco Giants Scorecards individually for the first time
2022
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RDR celebrates its 10th anniversary
2023
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RDR joins WBA
January 2024
Get involved
As we build our work we continue to engage with stakeholders across the globe through targeted communications with key organisations and representatives. We also encourage meaningful and constructive feedback.
