Editorial policy

The four rules

The answer comes first

Every guide opens with the verdict in two or three sentences, before any explanation. If you only read the top of the page, you should still know what to do. Background, history and reasoning come after the answer, never in front of it.

This has a cost we accept. A short answer at the top means a reader can leave immediately, having got what they came for. That is the point.

Every claim carries its article

A regulation is a grid of obligations, not an essay. We write it as tables and cite the article number on each line. You can check any sentence here against the published text.

The citation sits beside the claim, not in a footnote and not on a sources page alone. Every guide also lists its full sources at the bottom, each with its article number, so the list and the line agree.

We say when we do not know

Unverified points are labelled unverified, in the place the reader meets them. If an instrument is ambiguous, the guide says it is ambiguous rather than picking the reading that makes for a cleaner sentence.

A guide that cannot admit a gap is guessing somewhere, and you cannot tell where. Naming the gaps is what makes the rest of the page worth trusting.

Earning never decides the verdict

If a link on this site earns us something when you use it, that link is labelled where you see it, not only in the footer. Paid placement, if it ever exists, is labelled as paid placement in the entry itself.

If a rule does not apply to you, the guide says so, whether or not that costs us anything. A page that tells you to skip a service is worth more than a page that sells you one you did not need. No provider sees a guide before it is published, and no provider can change what a guide says you have to do.

How sources are chosen

The source is the instrument itself. Each guide names the regulation or directive it rests on, and that text is read in full for the parts the guide covers. Sources are read atpublications.europa.eu, addressed by CELEX number, which is the official published text.

Where a duty is created by one instrument and defined by another, both are read and both are cited. Guidance from a national authority may be quoted, but only as guidance, and it is labelled as such. It never replaces the article.

Why primary law and not other people's summaries

Most of what is written about EU product rules online is a summary of a summary. Each step drops a condition. The result reads confidently and is wrong at the edges, and the edges are exactly where a business outside the EU sits.

Two things get lost first, and they are the two that matter most here. The exclusions, which are what let you skip a rule. And the conditions on a duty, which decide whether it lands on you or on somebody else in the chain.

Reading the article is also the only way to give you something you can check. A summary you cannot trace is a request to take our word for it. We would rather hand you the article number and let you disagree with us.

Review cadence

Every guide shows a Last checked date. That date means the source text was re-read on that day, not that the page was edited.

Guides are reviewed against their sources on this schedule.

• At least every six months, whether or not anything appears to have changed.
• Whenever the instrument behind the guide is amended, as soon as the amending act is published.
• Whenever a reader reports something that looks wrong.

A review that finds nothing still moves the date. A review that finds an error produces a correction, and the correction is logged.

Errors

Mistakes are fixed in the open. Every substantive correction is recorded on thecorrections page with the date it was made and what changed. Other substantive changes to pages are recorded in thechangelog. If you think something here is wrong, tell us. Point at the article if you can, and we will read it again.