Research · 9 min read
When a Comparison Site Gets Paid, What the Rules Require
Ranking pages are a business, and federal advertising law has specific things to say about them. This site takes affiliate commissions, so it is inside the subject rather than above it.
Key takeaways
- Payment for a higher ranking is deceptive under the Endorsement Guides, and disclosing it is expressly described as inadequate.
- Payment that does not set the order, such as an affiliate referral commission, should be clearly and conspicuously disclosed.
- A methodology that lifts sellers with a relationship to the operator because of that relationship is misleading even without per-placement payments.
- A site that is owned or controlled by a seller cannot present itself as independent, and the consumer reviews rule makes that a violation outright.
- compareglp earns affiliate commissions; its disclosure page states that no placement, review or removal is for sale, and the paid-partner count in its disclosure sentence is computed rather than typed.
The short answer
There is a bright line in the Endorsement Guides, and it separates two things that look similar from the outside.
Taking money in exchange for a higher ranking is deceptive, and a disclosure does not fix it.
Taking money that does not set the order — an affiliate commission on a referral, for instance — is allowed, and the site should clearly and conspicuously disclose that it receives such payments.
The difference is not how much money changes hands. It is whether the money moves the list.
The example the Guides actually give
The Guides work through a review website that ranks products from most to least recommended. It is worth following closely, because it is unusually direct about a whole industry.
The site accepts money from manufacturers in exchange for higher rankings. The Guides say such paid-for rankings are deceptive regardless of whether the website makes express claims of objectivity or independence, and that the website operator is liable for the deception.
A manufacturer that pays for a higher ranking may also be held liable.
Then comes the part that matters most. A disclosure that the operator receives payments from manufacturers would be inadequate, because the payments actually determine the products' relative rankings.
That is a limit on what disclosure can do. Some arrangements are not fixable by admitting to them, and this is one.
The Guides then describe the permitted case in the same breath. Say the review website does not take payments for higher rankings, but does receive payments from some manufacturers, such as for affiliate link referrals. It should clearly and conspicuously disclose that it receives such payments.
The quieter version of the same problem
The second half of that example is easier to miss and harder to spot from outside.
A ranking methodology that produces higher rankings for products whose sellers have a relationship to the operator, because of those relationships, is also misleading.
No money has to change hands per placement. The bias can live inside the rubric.
That is worth holding against any scored comparison, including this one. A scoring system can be applied consistently and still be built so that partners score higher, if the things it measures happen to be the things partners do.
The check a reader can make is to ask what the score measures, whether the answer is written down, and whether it would still produce the same order if nobody were paying.
A site cannot pretend to be somebody else
Two nearby rules deal with sites that hide whose they are.
The Guides describe a manufacturer that sets up and operates what appears to be an independent review website, reviewing its own products alongside competitors'. Because the website falsely appears to be independent, it is deceptive.
The Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials makes a version of this a violation outright. It is an unfair or deceptive act for a business to materially misrepresent that a site it controls, owns or operates provides independent reviews or opinions. That covers reviews about any category of businesses, products or services that includes the business or what it sells.
The Commission's health advertising guidance carries a worked example on the same theme. An advertiser points to what appears to be an independent site discussing a medical risk and naming its own product as a safer alternative. The advertiser created and owns the site, so it is not independent literature, the advertiser is responsible for the claims on it, and it must clearly and conspicuously disclose the ownership.
The through-line is ownership, not tone. A site can be accurate and still be deceptive about whose it is.
Where a badge or an award comes from
Comparison pages often carry seals, awards and rankings from third parties, and the Guides treat those as endorsements.
An organization's endorsement is viewed as the judgment of a group whose collective experience exceeds that of any individual member. So the endorsement must be reached by a process sufficient to ensure it fairly reflects the organization's collective judgment.
If the organization is represented as expert, it must use an expert or experts it recognizes as such, or standards it previously adopted that are suitable for judging that kind of product.
The Guides illustrate the failure with an official-sounding institute whose name implies an independent testing body. If it is not one — if, say, it was established and operated by a manufacturer in the field — the endorsement is deceptive. Even a genuinely independent expert body's endorsement can be deceptive if it never ran valid tests supporting the message.
A related example covers commissioned research. Where a company pays for the analysis that produced a superlative about itself, it should clearly and conspicuously disclose its relationship to the testing organization. That relationship would likely be material to how people weigh the claim.
What a site may and may not do with reviews it hosts
If a comparison site also collects reader reviews, a second set of rules applies.
The Guides say that in procuring, suppressing, boosting, organizing, publishing, upvoting, downvoting, reporting or editing consumer reviews of their products, advertisers should not take actions that distort or otherwise misrepresent what consumers think.
The rule adds an enforceable version for review sections. It is a violation to materially misrepresent that the reviews shown represent most or all of the reviews submitted, when reviews are being suppressed based on their ratings or their negative sentiment.
It then lists what may be withheld without counting as suppression, so long as the criteria are applied equally to every review regardless of sentiment. That list includes defamatory, harassing, abusive, obscene, vulgar or sexually explicit content, another person's personal information or likeness, and content that is discriminatory with respect to race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity or another intrinsic characteristic.
One more from the Guides: labeling a review as the most helpful, when the site chose it rather than readers voting for it, is deceptive.
Where this site stands, in plain terms
It would be strange to write all of that and then say nothing about the page you are reading it on.
This site earns affiliate commissions. When a reader clicks through to a provider and signs up, that provider's program may pay a commission, and the reader pays nothing extra for arriving that way. That is stated on the disclosure page and repeated in a shorter form beside the buttons it applies to.
The number of paid partners in that shorter sentence is computed at render time from the provider roster, not typed into the copy. A number that is typed goes stale silently on the day a partnership starts or ends; a number that is counted does not.
What the disclosure page says about the arrangement is the part to hold this site to. No paid placement on the comparison board, no sponsored review, and no fee a company can pay to be added, moved up, or removed.
Board order comes from a score. The methodology page states what the score is built from: seven equally weighted checks, applied the same way to every company, recorded as a plain yes or no from what each company publishes.
That page is also explicit about what the score does not measure. It measures what a company is willing to disclose before you pay, not the quality of its care.
Judging any comparison site, including this one
Five questions get you most of the way, and none of them require trusting the site's self-description.
Is there a disclosure, and is it near the links it describes rather than only in a footer?
Does the disclosure say what kind of payment is involved? Commission on a signup, payment for placement and ownership of the company being reviewed are three different facts.
Is the ranking method written down, and does it name what it leaves out? A method that claims to measure everything is measuring nothing you can check.
Are unpaid companies present on the list, and are they treated the same way? A board where every entry pays is a catalog.
Would the order change if the money did? You cannot answer that from outside with certainty. You can notice whether the site has told you enough to ask.
Sources
- 16 CFR Part 255 — Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (§ 255.4, Endorsements by organizations, with § 255.2(d) and § 255.5)The ranking-website example: that paid-for rankings are deceptive regardless of express claims of objectivity, that the operator is liable and a paying manufacturer may be, that a disclosure of payments is inadequate where the payments determine the rankings, and that a site receiving affiliate referral payments without selling rankings should clearly and conspicuously disclose them; that a methodology producing higher rankings because of a seller's relationship to the operator is misleading; the manufacturer-run pseudo-independent review site; the standards for organizational and expert-organization endorsements and the official-sounding institute example; the commissioned testing organization example and its disclosure duty; the blogger affiliate-link example; the rule against distorting what consumers think through procuring, suppressing, boosting, organizing, publishing, upvoting, downvoting, reporting or editing reviews; and the deceptive most-helpful-review label.
- 16 CFR Part 465 — Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (§ 465.6, Company-controlled review websites or entities, and § 465.7, Review suppression)That it is an unfair or deceptive act and a violation of the part for a business to materially misrepresent that a website, organization or entity it controls, owns or operates provides independent reviews or opinions about a category of businesses, products or services including the business or what it sells; and the review-suppression provision, including the categories a site may withhold without that counting as suppression when its criteria are applied equally to all reviews regardless of sentiment.
- Health Products Compliance GuidanceThat whether third-party material falls within the Commission's reach turns largely on whether it was created or is being used by a marketer to promote its product; that placing such material two clicks away does not insulate the marketer from responsibility for implied claims; and the example of an advertiser-owned site presented as independent commentary, where the advertiser is responsible for the claims and must clearly and conspicuously disclose its ownership.
Frequently asked questions
Is it legal for a comparison site to earn commissions?
The Endorsement Guides describe the arrangement and the condition attached to it. Where a review website does not take payments for higher rankings but receives payments from some sellers, such as for affiliate link referrals, it should clearly and conspicuously disclose that it receives such payments. The Guides treat payment for higher rankings differently, describing it as deceptive.
Can a site take money for placement if it discloses that it does?
The Guides say no. In their worked example, a website accepting money from manufacturers in exchange for higher rankings is deceptive regardless of whether it makes express claims of objectivity. A disclosure that the operator receives payments would be inadequate, because the payments actually determine the relative rankings. They also state that a manufacturer paying for a higher ranking may be held liable as well.
What if the scoring system just happens to favor paying companies?
The Guides address that directly. Suppose a review website operator uses a ranking methodology that lifts products whose sellers have a relationship to the operator, because of those relationships. The Guides say the use of such a methodology is also misleading.
What about a brand running its own review site?
The Guides describe a manufacturer that operates what appears to be an independent review institute covering its own and competitors' products, and say that because the website falsely appears independent it is deceptive. The Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials adds an enforceable version. Under it, a business commits an unfair or deceptive act by materially misrepresenting that a site it controls, owns or operates provides independent reviews or opinions. That covers any category that includes the business or its products.
Does compareglp get paid by the providers it ranks?
Some of them, some of the time. Its disclosure page states that a provider's affiliate program may pay a commission when a reader signs up after clicking through, and that the reader pays nothing extra for arriving that way. The same page states that there is no paid placement on the comparison board, no sponsored review, and no fee a company can pay to be added, moved up, or taken off. The count of how many providers are currently paid partners is computed from the roster and rendered into the disclosure sentence rather than typed.
How is the board order decided here?
By a score. The methodology page states that each provider is scored out of ten from seven checks, each worth the same. Every check is recorded as a plain yes or no from what the company publishes, rather than inferred from marketing copy. That page also states what the score does not do: it measures what a company is willing to disclose before you pay, not the quality of its care.