Why publish this at all
Most publications describe what they sell. Very few describe what they refuse, which is the part that tells a reader whether anything they read can be trusted. A title that rules on whether a claim is permitted has an obvious structural problem: the parties who most want to influence that ruling are the parties with the largest budgets. The only workable answer is to make the refusals public, specific and permanent.
The list
- Any listing sold to a sunscreen brand. At any price, in any format, in the register, in the newsletter or anywhere else. Brands, own label suppliers, contract manufacturers of finished sun protection products, retailers and distributors are excluded from every commercial product we run.
- Product recommendations. No best of, no shortlist, no top ten, no editor's choice, no comparison table of named products, paid or unpaid.
- Affiliate links. None on the site, none in the newsletter, none in any format. We do not hold affiliate accounts.
- Sponsored articles. No advertorial, no paid guest post, no supplied copy, no partnership content, however labelled.
- Editorial links. Links inside articles are not for sale. We do not sell, exchange, insert or reinstate them, and we do not respond to requests to do so.
- Influence over a claim ruling. The status of a phrase is determined by the instrument that governs it. It is not for sale, it is not negotiable, and no commercial relationship changes it.
- Advance sight. Nobody sees anything before publication, including register clients and sponsors.
- Removal of accurate material. Not for sale, at any price, to anybody.
- Seals, badges and approvals. We do not operate a mark, a certification, an approval scheme or a kitemark, and we will not licence one.
- Advertising networks. No display advertising, no programmatic, no AdWords, no retargeting, no third party ad scripts of any kind.
- The subscriber list. Never shared, sold, rented or made available for a sponsor's own mailing.
- Category exclusivity. Nobody can buy a promise that we will stop writing about a subject, or that we will not write about a competitor.
What we do sell
Two things, both described in full elsewhere: a paid entry in the register of testing and regulatory specialists, alphabetical and labelled, sold on disclosed verifiable facts and never linked from an article; and one labelled sponsor line per newsletter issue, at a published rate, from the same restricted pool of eligible categories.
The test we apply
Before adding any commercial product we ask one question: could a reasonable reader believe that this money influenced a claim ruling? If the answer is anything other than a flat no, we do not do it. That test is why the register excludes every party whose claims we might examine, and why articles do not link to the register at all.