Our commitments
Tolbrook is an independent digital compliance auditor. We review how consumer websites handle the choices people make about their data, and we publish sector audit reports so that businesses, their customers and their partners can see how a sector is doing. A report is only useful if people can trust that nobody paid to shape it. These are the commitments we hold ourselves to.
The same audit for everyone
Every storefront in a sector review is audited in the same way, on the same criteria, in the same period. A business cannot choose its criteria, its date or its auditor.
Payment never changes a finding
Tolbrook is a commercial company. Some businesses we review may also buy our services, such as continuous audits or help putting problems right. Being a client, or declining to become one, never changes what we observed, what we report, or when we report it. No business pays to be included, left out or described differently, and nobody can pay for a finding to be removed, softened or delayed.
Only a real change changes a result
The only thing that changes a result is a change to the website itself, confirmed by a recheck. We recheck on request, free of charge, for every business in scope, whether or not it is a client.
Businesses hear from us first
Sector reports show aggregate results and name no business.
We report conduct, not legal status
Our audit opinions (clean, qualified or adverse) describe what a website did when we tested it, on the date we tested it. Tolbrook is a private company. It is not a regulator, a government agency, a standards body or a law firm. Nothing we publish is legal advice or a statement about any business's legal position.
We only look at what any visitor can see
We audit public web pages as an ordinary visitor would. We do not log in, buy anything, fill in forms or access anything that is not open to the public.
Corrections
If we get something wrong, we correct it quickly and say so in the report. We publish a list of corrections with each report.
Disclosure of interests
Tolbrook has no ownership stake in any business in a sector it reviews, takes no payment from those businesses other than fees for its own services, and accepts no payment from anyone to review or leave out a business.
Review of these commitments
We review these commitments every year and publish the date of the last review here.