Three listing states are used, and the difference between them is what has been checked — never how much we like the organisation.
Verified. Assessed against all six criteria below, with the evidence recorded.
Listed. Included because it is materially relevant to the category, but not yet assessed. A listing is not an endorsement.
Under review. An assessment is in progress, or a previously verified listing has raised a question that has not been resolved.
The six criteria
- Operational transparency. Is there a public status page, and does it reflect real incidents — including partial degradation, not only total outages?
- Documented interfaces. Is there a published specification a developer can integrate against without a sales call?
- Delivery accountability. Are failures reported with a cause, and is there a defined retry and escalation path?
- Consent and compliance posture. Is opt-out handled at the platform level, and is consent tracked per channel rather than as a single flag?
- Data handling. Are storage locations, retention periods and sub-processors documented?
- Commercial clarity. Is pricing published, or at least explained without obligation?
On "not assessed"
Most listings have several criteria marked not assessed, including large and reputable companies. That is the honest state: some of these questions can only be answered by working through documentation we have not yet worked through, and marking a criterion met on reputation would make the whole scorecard decorative.
Not assessed is not a failure. It is an admission that we have not checked, which is more useful to you than a guess.
On our own products
They are assessed against the same six criteria and marked as ours. One currently sits under review rather than verified, on the delivery criterion: its transport reaches WhatsApp through an unofficial protocol implementation, which is disclosed on its card and discussed at length in our own writing.
A directory that exempted its publisher's products would not be worth consulting.