front groups,
which pretend to represent grassroots efforts, and are actually run by
suspect politicians or shady corporations sometimes called
"astroturf", since they're the opposite of honest grassroots efforts to deceive consumers or voters.
Consumers Union WebWatch and the Center for Media and Democracy have just launched Full Frontal Scrutiny, the purpose of which is to expose consumer-related front groups.
The
Full Frontal Scrutiny site is debuting today with
an investigation of front group activity on Wikipedia.
The information includes a guide to help consumers get the most out of
that site and other information sources on the Web, and with a history
of front groups and their nefarious activities. Full Frontal Scrutiny
will also publish selected content from WebWatch and from the CMD's
SourceWatch site, as well as aggregating news about front groups from
other reliable sources.