Review absolute assurances in store copy

Expand the assurance into the promise a visitor reads

Start with the exact published statement, including any absolute qualifier. Capture where it appears and the nearby heading, image, product range and explanatory text. The scope can come from placement as well as wording: a storewide assurance beside the whole catalog can communicate more than the document linked from a single listing.

Write down what is being assured before deciding whether a document supports it. Is the statement about a product's safety, permission to sell in a jurisdiction, or a payment provider's acceptance of a business? These require different evidence and different decision owners. Do not group them under a single reassurance merely because the store would like visitors to feel confident.

Compare the evidence's coverage with every part of the claim

The FTC's US truth-in-advertising guidance calls for advertising to be truthful, nonmisleading and substantiated, including on websites. Use that principle to ask what the actual record establishes. Identify its issuer, subject, date, covered conditions and stated limitations. Then compare those limits with the statement on the page. Evidence for a bounded statement does not, by itself, support removing its boundaries.

For a safety assurance, record the precise product and property the evidence addresses and send any question about the adequacy of that evidence to an appropriately qualified professional. Do not turn a document's presence into a safety finding. For a legality assurance, identify the jurisdiction, activity and conditions the proposed wording covers and seek qualified legal advice. For an approval assurance, identify who made the decision, what it covers, and any limitations or expiry in the actual decision record. Approval from one party does not establish approval by unnamed parties.

If the record is absent or does not answer one part of the assurance, mark that part unsupported or unresolved. Lack of substantiation in your files is not proof of the opposite proposition, but it is not a basis to publish the unconditional assertion. The worksheet is a comparison of coverage, not a legal test or a product certification.

Read the disclaimer alongside the assurance

Copy any disclaimer the business relies on and read it with the prominent statement. If the two conflict, record both wordings and their locations. Do not mark the assurance supported merely because a limitation appears elsewhere. The limitation may reveal that the business itself recognizes a narrower scope than its main message communicates.

Prism's terms expressly distinguish a research-only label from legality or processing eligibility. They also describe reviews as informational rather than certification or legal advice. A footer label, a review report, and an approval record therefore cannot be substituted for one another. Keep the audience description accurate while resolving the substantive claim. Adding more research-only wording is not a substitute for evidence about the assurance.

Choose an editorial action tied to the actual gap

When the available evidence supports only a narrower factual description, draft that description with the material limits intact and have the appropriate owner review it. When the claim has no adequate support, remove or hold it rather than replacing the absolute with another vague reassurance. If the question is whether the underlying activity is lawful or the product claim is supportable, route that question to qualified professionals before publishing a conclusion.

Record the person responsible, the affected URLs and the decision. Check the published surfaces named in that decision, including images and reused copy. A draft edit in one page does not establish that a repeated banner or FAQ answer changed. Retain the original observation and the dated correction so the team can explain what was addressed.

A Prism website-review consultation can start from those public URLs, exact assurances and unresolved scope questions. The consultation sets the pages and work to be considered; it does not confer legal clearance, product certification or a provider's approval.

Absolute-assurance record

Use one copy for each actual assurance. Compare all implied coverage with the evidence before choosing an action. An unresolved element remains a gap; completing the table does not certify the wording or establish legality.

Worksheet entries are not submitted by Prism’s worksheet and are not saved by the site. Use record types, availability, anonymized observations, or match/mismatch results. Do not enter government identifiers, customer names or addresses, customer messages, receipt-access links, card or bank details, passwords, or keys. Send sensitive documents only through the provider’s verified secure channel.

These are temporary notes. Leaving or reloading this page may clear them. Worksheet entries are not sent automatically. If you copy notes into the consultation message and submit the form, Prism receives them as part of your request.