Ranking Digital Rights (RDR): Research project

Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) works to promote freedom of expression and privacy on the internet by creating global standards and incentives for companies to respect and protect users’ rights. The project does this by ranking the world’s most powerful internet, mobile, and telecommunications companies on relevant commitments and policies, based on international human rights standards.

The 2018 RDR Corporate Accountability Index ranked 22 companies. The 2019 RDR Index, released in May 2019, ranks 24 companies on their policies and disclosures affecting the freedom of expression and privacy of internet users across the world.

Additionally, the RDR methodology is published under a Creative Commons license. The raw data is available for others to adapt or present in different ways. We have an inclusive process for methodology development, and thus have built in both greater opportunities for supporting a much broader ecosystem of research and data on corporate disclosures related to digital rights.