Ownership, Affiliate and Testing Disclosure
Last updated
Who publishes this site
Auto Detail USA is published by Shine Master Detailers LLC, which manufactures and sells ShineMD Ultimate Shine and Protection. We are the manufacturer. This site is our publication, not an independent one, and we state that on every page where we evaluate a product.
Products we make
ShineMD Ultimate Shine and Protection is ours. Anywhere it appears in a comparison or a test, it is labelled as our product, and the page carries an ownership disclosure before any conclusion is presented.
How we obtain products we test
Every product in a test is labelled with how we got it, using one of three categories:
- Purchased at retail — we bought it the same way a customer would, with no contact with the manufacturer.
- Supplied free by the manufacturer — we received it at no cost or at a discount. This is disclosed wherever that product appears, as the FTC requires.
- Made by us — our own product.
How we make money
Two ways, both disclosed.
We sell ShineMD. If our content persuades you that a well-applied coating is worth having, we would obviously like it to be ours, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
We also earn affiliate commission on some links to third-party products, including as an Amazon Associate, which means we may receive a commission if you buy through those links at no additional cost to you. Affiliate links are disclosed on the page that contains them, above the first such link. A commission never affects a measurement or where a product places in a test, for the straightforward reason that our published method does not contain a step where commission is an input.
What we will not do
We will not publish a review of a product we have not used.
We will not describe testing we did not perform, or state a durability figure we have not measured. Where we are repeating a manufacturer’s claim rather than our own finding, we say so explicitly.
We will not publish a ranking of our own product presented as an independent verdict.
We will not use pen names or stock photography for authors. Every article carries a real, named person, and where that person works for us, their relationship to the company is disclosed next to their byline.
We will not suppress an unfavourable result about our own product. Our test method is published before data collection begins, specifically so that we cannot quietly change the criteria after seeing the outcome.
Corrections
If we get something wrong, tell us and we will correct it and note the correction on the page rather than editing it silently.