How we rank and what we take as true.
Who gets in, who decides the order, what is checked and what is not. Written so it can be argued with: if any of this looks wrong to you, there is a page to tell us.
Who gets into the directory.
Publishing is free and gives no ranking position. Anyone with a verified account can propose a product, whether it is theirs or not.
Every new listing goes through review
It goes in as pending and does not appear in the catalogue until someone looks at it. Publishing directly would turn the form into an open noticeboard.
Proposing is not owning
Whoever submits a listing is recorded as its proposer. Ownership is earned by paying for the listing plan, and only its owner can edit the listing text.
One listing per product
The domain identifies the product and is subject to a unique constraint in the database. If you try to add something that is already there, we take you to the existing listing so you can manage it.
How the order is decided.
The ranking is decided by users’ votes, with or without an account, with an adjustment for age.
One vote per person and product
A unique index in the database enforces it, not a check in the code: a check can be bypassed with two simultaneous requests, an index cannot.
Votes decay
The score loses weight over time. Without that, the ranking freezes on the oldest entries and stops being a ranking to become an archive.
Voting for your own product counts separately
The vote is recorded as the owner’s and treated as such. We do not hide it: we mark it.
Fraud is reversed
Accounts created to inflate a product are blocked and their votes leave the count. It is not a threat: the count is recalculated.
What “complies” means.
Regulatory compliance data is the reason this directory exists, so it is the strictest thing here.
Declared is not accepted
The maker declares what it complies with and its listing shows it as declared by them, with their name. It does not count in searches or filters.
Accepting requires a source
A reviewer can only accept a line by providing the URL where it was checked. Without a source the system does not allow accepting: it is not a style rule, it is a validation.
Rejecting leaves a trace
A rejected line is not deleted: it stays marked with its note. If someone asks why their product is not listed as compliant, there has to be a written answer.
It is reviewed every quarter
Rules change and so do products. An accepted item carries its date, and that date is part of the data.
Money and content, kept apart.
There are ad spaces and they are paid for. What cannot be bought is the ranking position.
Paid space is marked
Always, everywhere it appears. An ad that cannot be told apart from content is covert advertising.
Position is not for sale
Neither to raise yours nor to lower someone else’s. Whoever sponsors appears in the ranking at the place the votes give them, like everyone else.
Neither is compliance
Whoever sponsors goes through the same review, with the same demand for a source.
What we do not do yet
Saying it matters as much as saying what we do. Today we do not measure product performance, we do not run our own usage tests and we do not audit anyone’s security. When we accept a compliance item it is because we have read its source, not because we have tested it in a lab.
Does something look wrong? Ask for a correction.