Reset is a left-of-center grantmaking organization that advocates for so-called digital rights such as online privacy. Reset received seed funding from Luminate and the Sandler Foundation, and receives ongoing funding from Fidelity Charitable, a provider of donor-advised fund (DAF) accounts.

Reset is a fiscally-sponsored project of Luminate Projects Limited, a UK-based company owned by Luminate, an organization founded by the Omidyar Group.

Reset is a donor to the Global Disinformation Index, a platform which intends to track “disinformation” on a global scale.

Background

Reset is not a standalone organization but a fiscally-sponsored project of Luminate Projects Limited, a UK-based company owned by Luminate, an organization founded by the Omidyar Group. ¹

Activities

Reset advocates the adoption of policies that would regulate major technology companies “ensuring their operations better serve democracy.” It claims to provide users with the tools to protect themselves from “harmful content and online manipulation.” Reset claims to conduct and finance other organizations’ research into the effects of technology platforms and possible policy solutions to what it perceives as their negative influence. Reset also funds technologies that would expose and undermine online surveillance, particularly through its Open Calls program which hosts fellowships and projects for developers working toward this end. ²

Reset holds public campaigns to link its work with climate change and left-of-center social policy advocacy groups. It also actively looks for opportunities to litigate in the European Union and the United Kingdom and organize class-action lawsuits against major technology platforms. ³

Funding

Reset was provided startup funds by Luminate and the Sandler Foundation. Luminate was founded by the Omidyar Group, a collection of philanthropic efforts funded by eBay founder and left-wing billionaire Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam. The Sandler Foundation is a left-of-center philanthropy organization founded by billionaire bankers Herbert and Marion Sandler. ⁴

Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, a donor-advised fund (DAF) provider that is considered the largest public charity in the United States, provides ongoing funding to Reset. ⁵

Reset is a donor to the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a London-based think tank focused on combatting alleged disinformation on online news sites. It intends to become a platform which to track “disinformation” on a global scale. ⁶

Leadership

As of 2023, Ben Scott was Reset’s executive director. Scott is the former director of policy and advocacy at Luminate and previously helped lead Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV), a Berlin-based technology-policy advocacy group. ⁷ As of March 2023, many of Reset’s staffers are also staffers of Luminate, its parent group. ^{8 9}

Reset’s programming are overseen by a steering committee made up in equal parts by the Sandler Foundation and Luminate. ¹⁰

As of 2023, Reset’s advisory council was made up of five members: Maria Paz Canales, Pia Mancini, Emma Ruby-Sachs, Marietje Schaake, Shoshana Zuboff. Paz Canales is a lawyer and the executive director of Derechos Digitales, a digital human rights and privacy advocacy organization founded in Chile in 2005. Mancini is an Argentine activist who chairs the Democracy Earth Foundation and is the co-founder and CEO of Open Collective, an incubator for left-wing advocacy projects in the United States. ¹¹

Ruby-Sachs is a lawyer and the executive director of SumOfUs, an environmentalist organization which pressures businesses to adopt left-of-center policies on the environment and animal liberation. She was the former deputy director of Avaaz, a left-of-center international campaigning organization. Schaake is the president of the Cyber Peace Institute and the international policy director at Stanford University Cyber Policy Center. Schaake was a member of the European Parliament for Dutch liberal party Democrats 66. Zuboff is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School and the author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. ¹²

1. “Governance.” Reset.tech. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.reset.tech/governance/.
2. “Work.” Reset.tech. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.reset.tech/work/.
3. “Work.” Reset.tech. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.reset.tech/work/.
4. “Governance.” Reset.tech. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.reset.tech/governance/.
5. “Governance.” Reset.tech. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.reset.tech/governance/.
6. “Funders.” Global Disinformation Index. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.disinformationindex.org/about.
7. “People.” Reset.tech. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.reset.tech/people/.
8. “People.” Reset.tech. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.reset.tech/people/.
9. “Our People.” Luminate. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.luminategroup.com/our-people.
10. “Governance.” Reset.tech. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.reset.tech/governance/
11. “People.” Reset.tech. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.reset.tech/people/.
12. “People.” Reset.tech. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.reset.tech/people/.