Editorial policy
These rules govern what may be published on KotoVPN. They are written as constraints rather than aspirations, so a page either satisfies them or does not ship.
Sourcing
- Every factual claim about a provider carries a source URL and the date the source was read. Claims without both do not enter the dataset.
- Provider marketing copy is a source for what the provider says, never for whether it is true. “Fastest VPN” is a claim about advertising, not about speed.
- Audit claims name the firm, the year and the scope. “Independently audited” with no firm named is treated as no audit.
- Numbers we did not measure are labelled with who did. Numbers nobody measured are not published.
Scoring
- Scores come from the published rubric only. There is no editorial adjustment stage after the arithmetic.
- Each criterion score carries a reason stating a checkable fact. A reason that is an opinion is not a valid input.
- A missing fact scores zero for that criterion, not an average. Absence of evidence is reported as absence of evidence.
- Commission, traffic and conversion rate are not inputs at any weight.
Review cycle
- Pricing is re-checked at least quarterly, and after any provider price announcement.
- Audit status is re-checked at least twice a year.
- Ownership and jurisdiction are re-checked on any acquisition report.
- Every page displays the date its underlying facts were last checked.
Corrections
Errors are corrected in the dataset, which propagates to every page that uses the fact, including any score it feeds. Material corrections are logged with a date on the corrections page. We do not silently edit a claim and leave the page looking as though it always said that.
Contact from providers
Providers may dispute any claim. The process is the same as for a reader: send the source that shows the fact is wrong. A corrected fact changes the score through the rubric, in whichever direction the fact points. We do not negotiate scores, accept payment to change one, or remove a criticism in exchange for a commercial arrangement.
Conflicts of interest
KotoVPN earns affiliate commission from some providers, disclosed per provider on the disclosure page and next to every outbound link. We hold no equity in any provider covered, and accept no free subscriptions in exchange for coverage. Where a subscription is required for testing, it is bought at the public price.
AI use
Language models are used for drafting and editing. They are not used to generate facts, scores, prices or test results — every one of those comes from a source or a measurement, and every page is reviewed by a person before publication. A model cannot check a price, and a page that reads as though nobody checked is a page that should not be indexed.
What gets a page unpublished
- A claim we cannot re-source on review
- A page that exists only because a keyword permutation does
- A comparison where the underlying data no longer differs meaningfully
- Any page whose score cannot be reconstructed from its own tables