Executive Policy
These are policies formally adopted by Privacy Guides' executive committee, and take precedence over all other statements expressed on this website.
The key words must, must not, required, shall, shall not, should, should not, recommended, may, and optional are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
EP1: Freely-Provided Product Samples
Our policy on accepting product samples for review was adopted September 7, 2024.
- Privacy Guides shall not proactively reach out to vendors asking for product samples or review accounts.
- Privacy Guides shall not accept test/review accounts for subscription cloud services.
- Privacy Guides may accept freely-provided product samples for one-time purchase software applications which run locally, given they don't require a subscription for continued operation.
- Privacy Guides may accept freely-provided samples of hardware products.
- Privacy Guides may accept a freely-provided subscription service associated with a hardware product, if such a subscription/license is necessary to use the product.
- Privacy Guides must not enter into an agreement pertaining to our editorial opinion with the vendor in order to receive a sample or publish a review. All freely-provided items must be strictly "no strings attached."
- We may agree to return the product to the vendor following the review if requested.
- We may agree to a reasonable NDA, provided it has a clear embargo date that is lifted no more than 6 months in the future where the NDA completely no longer applies.
- We should not enter into any other agreement with the vendor not described here. Potential agreements not described here must be approved by the executive committee beforehand.
In all cases, whether we paid for the product independently or received a free sample from a vendor, how we obtained the product must be clearly documented in the background section of every article associated with the product.
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