Ethics

Unless otherwise noted, all reviews on this site are written by Tim Flight.

Narrative

Whenever you review products, someone will feel you have a certain bias. We are glad, and proud of the fact that we are very rarely accused of having any bias. Also interesting is the assertions for or against are fairly evenly split among the major manufacturers. But perhaps one of our readers said it best when we explained we couldn’t answer a generic “which is best?” type question:

“As usual, I find your explanations to be very fair and without agenda. That’s a necessity in your position, and we’re lucky to have your in depth knowledge in combination with your evenhandedness.”

When we refer to companies or manufacturers in this Ethics statement, the policy also extends to their public relations agency.

Compensation

We do not accept “freebie” products from manufacturers whose products we review. We occasionally receive products from the manufacturer on loan for short periods of time. These products are returned to the manufacturer when the analysis has been completed. However most often we try to purchase these products direct from store shelves to alleviate any direct relationship with the manufacturer and to give ourselves more time with the product than would be allowed from product loans.

We do not accept compensation of any kind to review a specific product, so called “paid reviews”. We only review products we decide to review on our own accord that we feel will be of most interest to our readers.

Trade Shows

We frequently attend industry trade shows. These shows provide us with a way to talk with many companies in one place. These shows also tend to be places where attendees are given “swag” or other free promotional products. We will accept something silly like a T-Shirt or stickers, but nothing of a more substantial value… say $15 or more.

Often companies will include their press kit on a USB flash drive. We will keep those memory sticks in order to maintain a copy of the press materials inside them. I’ve got plenty of my own USB drives to store my own files that I wouldn’t need to take advantage of one received by a company for other storage purposes.

The shows themselves often give out backpacks to attendees, and provided they don’t contain any advertising for companies we cover, we will utilize the backpack.

Company Events

Often a company might hold a party or dinner, often at trade-shows. If invited, these types of events often allow us to interact with certain company officials in a way we wouldn’t otherwise have the same opportunity. We will let them purchase a beer or a burger, but not a $30 steak.

Along these lines, sometimes companies offer to host a meeting at their location to brief us on new products or services. We purchase our own transportation, lodging, meals, and other associated travel costs if we decide to attend.

Discussions with Companies

As with anyone else who starts using a new product, we often have questions about the operation or encounter problems. We try to address those questions or problems directly with the company before the review is written. The manufacturer can then be given a chance to let us know the proper operation, or offer a fix. If something is corrected before the review is published, we might not mention the issue in the review since it has been corrected and it isn’t something any end consumer would run into at that point.

Often when receiving a loaner product for review the company will allow us to purchase the product at a discount. We do not accept these offers. If we want the product we will return the loaner and purchase the product from a third party retail store.

Advertising

We do not sell advertising direct to any manufacturer whose products we review. Instead we rely on advertising brokers to provide the advertisements displayed on our site. Those brokers may sell advertising to manufacturers, however we have no control over who they sell advertising to.

We strive to offer advertising we feel will be relevant and useful to our readers. For example some of our advertising may display a list of stores and prices where a product can be purchased.

Investments

We do not invest any money in the manufacturers of products we review, nor do we offer any consulting services to those manufacturers. This extends to mutual funds that have a portion of those investments held in companies who have products we review.