| In order for a nominated
site to be considered for listing in The World's Best
Sites Preferred Merchants Directory, it must clearly exhibit
ALL of the following characteristics: |
| Is a legitimate and
lawful consumer product or service website offering a
clearly tangible product and/or measurable service to
the general public. |
| Does not facilitate
or promote any illegal or unethical activity. |
| Has a privacy
policy posted which outlines how any personal
data will be used. |
| Utilizes Secure
Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption for the transmission
of secure data. |
| Is in compliance with
anti-spam laws and does not engage in the practice of
sending unsolicited emails. |
| Does not engage in the practice of attempting to appear as another organization in order to
deceive visitors into supplying sensitive information, making financial contributions, or remitting payment.
|
| Does not result in viruses, spyware, adware or other malicious files being placed onto visitors' computers.
|
| Does not contain material authored by an outside source without receiving proper permission and without
giving proper aknowledgement of its original source.
|
| Does not contain pornographic or sexually explicit material of any kind.
|
| Does not express views of prejudice, intolerance, or hatred toward any group.
|
| Is relatively free of spelling and grammatical errors.
|
| Does not incorporate
technology (pop-ups, spyware, dialog boxes, etc.) to prevent
visitors from leaving the site or to mislead them into
inadvertently giving consent for an action to take place.
|
| Is either written in English or has an English translation readily available through
the visitor interface.
|
| Does not have any broken links, inoperable forms, or missing images.
|
| Is clearly logically related to the category or categories for which it is nominated.
|
| Loads within a reasonable amount of time even at lower connection speeds.
|
| Does not merely copy or mirror the content of another site.
|
| Does not propagate any anti-Government or terrorist message.
|
| Does not consist predominantly of affiliate content.
|
| Is readable and not made difficult to read by the design of the page.
|
| Displays up-to-date content.
|
| Displays truthful and accurate content.
|
| Adheres to good design practices and is tastefully designed.
|
Adhering to these criteria
does not guarantee that a site will qualify to be listed in
The World's Best Sites Preferred Merchants Directory. These
criteria simply represent the minimum requirements
that a site must meet in order to be considered for listing
here. Only sites which represent exceptional benefit to the
consumer public and are favorably distinguished from other
nominated sites in their respective nomination categories
in addition to meeting the above criteria will be featured
in the Directory.
