Plain rule
Brands cannot pay The Product Report for better scores, ratings, recommendations, rankings, awards, placements, removals, retests, or private handling of negative evidence.
1. Plain rule
A product score should be based on evidence, methodology, review status, and disclosed limits. It should not be based on whether a brand advertises, pays, partners, threatens, negotiates, or asks for special treatment.
2. Prohibited payments
The following are not allowed:
- Payment for a higher score, better grade, award, badge, or recommendation.
- Payment to hide, delay, suppress, soften, or remove negative evidence.
- Payment for featured placement, preferred ranking, or category positioning.
- Payment for a private retest path that is not available through normal correction or dispute rules.
- Payment to influence which products are tested or how results are interpreted.
- Payment tied to a specific scoring outcome or public verdict.
3. Allowed revenue
The Product Report may earn money from sources that do not buy scoring influence:
- Member subscriptions.
- Retail affiliate commissions disclosed to users.
- Consumer-facing products or services that are not sold to reviewed brands for scoring influence.
- Non-brand funding that does not control product selection, scoring, review, or publication.
4. Affiliate firewall
Retail affiliate revenue may exist when users buy through some links. Affiliate economics should not affect product selection, testing priority, scoring formulas, ranking order, verdict wording, score receipts, or correction decisions.
Where possible, score and review workflows should not depend on affiliate revenue data. Affiliate disclosure belongs near commerce links, but the score itself should stand on its evidence receipt.
5. Brand response firewall
Brands can challenge facts, submit updated source material, provide product-scope details, or respond to a report through the Brand Response Portal. That process is evidence-based, not payment-based.
A brand response can change a public result only when the evidence supports a change under the same rules applied to other products.
6. Audit trail
Public score infrastructure should make commercial independence visible by default. Product score receipts should include:
- Evidence tier and source owner.
- Reviewer status.
- Correction history when applicable.
- Commercial conflict disclosure, including whether paid brand influence is absent, pending review, or blocked.
7. Report a concern
If you believe a rating, ranking, score, correction, or product placement was influenced by payment or undisclosed commercial pressure, email legal@theproductreport.orgwith the subject line "Paid Ratings Concern".