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Ethics & Independence

The compensation we accept, the relationships we disclose, and the rules our newsroom follows when it comes to commercial pressure.

Compensation

We do not run banner advertising. We do not run sponsored content, native advertising, or "partnered" features. We do not maintain affiliate relationships with any retailer, marketplace, or app store. When we link to a product page, the link is a plain link — not a tracked affiliate URL — and the linked retailer pays nothing for the click.

The Curated Weekly is funded by reader subscriptions and by the personal capital of its founders. We accept no grants from companies whose products we cover, no editorial sponsorships, and no per-article fees from any external party.

Review units and product loans

We do not accept review units, sample products, beta access, or pre-release loaners from manufacturers. Every product we test is purchased at retail with the publication's funds, returned through the retailer's standard return policy at the end of the testing period if returnable, and otherwise donated or kept for archival reference. Software and services are tested at standard published rates, with the same accounts a reader would open.

Travel and hospitality

We do not accept paid press trips, comp meals, hosted events, or hotel hospitality from any subject of our reporting. When a story requires travel, we pay our own way.

Personal investments

Reporters disclose to the editor any personal financial interest in a company they cover. Reporters do not buy or sell securities of a company they are actively writing about, and they may not write about a company in which they hold a material long position. When a personal investment cannot be unwound in time, the story is reassigned.

Outside employment

Reporters may not work, paid or unpaid, for a company whose products they cover. This applies to consulting arrangements, contract work, advisory roles, and any other compensated relationship.

Editorial independence

No subject of an article — no source, no company, no product manufacturer, no advertiser, no investor — is shown copy in advance or given the opportunity to "review" or "approve" the article before publication. We may fact-check specific factual claims with a source before publication, but we do not share the full piece for pre-publication review.

AI and editorial work

We do not use AI tools to generate editorial content — full stop. The articles, reviews, and features on this site are written by named human journalists. AI tools are not used to draft, rewrite, ghost-write, "augment," or polish prose that appears under a staff byline.

We treat AI-generated content the same way we treat any other unverified source: it is not a substitute for reporting. AI tools may be used by reporters as personal aids — searching their own notes, summarizing a document for personal reading, scheduling — but those uses do not produce text that appears on this site.

Disclosures

The founders of The Curated Weekly do not hold equity in any of the companies, apps, or products covered by the publication's regular reporting beats. The publication has no parent company, no holding entity with overlapping portfolio interests, and no financial relationship with any subject of its reporting beyond the retail purchase of products for testing.

Reader trust

Editorial independence is not a marketing claim — it is the entire premise of this publication. If you ever believe that a Curated Weekly article appears to have been influenced by an undisclosed commercial relationship, please write to us at the contact page. We will investigate and, if a violation is found, publish a correction.