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Disqualifying Factors and mandatory requirements

Created 2003-01-30. Reviewed 2005-04-25: Added clarifications and requisites for children' sites; Reworded the item in our Privacy Policy regarding "Children Privacy Protection".

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When assessing the web site's eligibility or during the review process, factors that will lead to immediate disqualification are described below (but are not limited to).

1. Disqualifying factors in site's content;
2. Disqualifying factors in site's design;
3. Disqualifying privacy and safety issues;
4. Disqualifying interaction practices.

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I. When evaluating the site's content.

1. The existence of any material (including text, videos, animations, images, etc.):
   1. that can be widely considered as offensive or rude, potentially disturbing and/or dangerous. Such material is allowed only if in educational, scientific and/or artistic context (as determined by our panel) and clearly noticed in the opening page. Content rating, by means of a PICS label, is mandatory in such case (1);
   2. that can be considered of strong sexual or erotic connotation, such as integral or partial nudes, description of sexual activities, either in words, sounds or images and similar or related material except when included in educational, scientific and/or artistic context as determined by our panel. Content rating, by means of a PICS label, is mandatory in such case (1);
   3. that incites or promotes abuse and violence against other human beings, animals and nature, including (but not limited to) hunting, bullfights;
   4. that promotes pedophilia and pornography/bestiality;
   5. that promotes any kind of sexual commerce, product or service, as well as adult-oriented commercial activities;
   6. that promotes online gambling;
   7. that promotes any illegal activities or incites to commit illegal activities;
   8. that promotes the use of drugs, tobacco or the abuse of alcohol; We will accept references to such products when in an educational or informative context.
   9. that contains written material, any image or any other representation of ideas or theories, which advocates, promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence, against any individual or group of individuals, based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, political affiliation, as well as religion if used as a pretext for any of these factors;
   10. that denies, grossly minimises, approves or justifies acts constituting genocide or crimes against humanity, as defined by international law and recognised as such by final and binding decisions of the International Military Tribunal, established by the London Agreement of 8 August 1945, or of any other international court established by relevant international instruments;
   11. that promotes personal or institutional discrimination of any other person, institution or organization;
   12. Links (including banners and other advertising material) to sites with content similar to the described in the items above, are considered as a promotion and therefore will imply immediate disqualification (2).
   13. The evidence of plagiarism, copyright violation, bandwidth stealing and failure to properly credit and acknowledge the source of all non-original material existing in the site;

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II. When evaluating the site's design.

1. The site will be disqualified if:
   1. it is anonymous, i.e. no information about the author can be found in the site;
   2. it is inactive, frozen or has not been updated for more than 3 months;
   3. it contains "under-construction" pages or sections;
   4. it has more than 2% of its links to images, buttons or banners' sources broken;
   5. it has more than 2% of its total number of links to other sites, including external resources (counters, guest books, etc.) broken;
   6. it shows any error due to missing stylesheets or java applets;
   7. it contains broken internal links (to pages located in the website);
   8. it opens a new window (with different content or not) when the current window is closed;
   9. attempts to place the current page as the browser's homepage; displays a pop-up window or message box asking for the inclusion in "Favorites";
   10. it opens external links in the site's own frame set;
2. Also considered as disqualifying factors are:
   1. The existence of any kind of mouse trailer and/or the existence of any script modifying the user' standard mouse operation and look (for instance, changing the cursor shape, color and/or size).
   2. The non existence of a skip link in any splash page with Flash (or other) animations and/or movies.
   3. The loading time of the entrance page if it exceeds 90 seconds on a 56K connection;
   4. The non existence of a music/sound control when background music or sound effects are used in the site. This control may be as simple as an on/off control easily seen and readily available.

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III. When assessing Privacy and Safety policies and issues.

1. We will not consider eligible to be awarded one of our awards any website owned and/or operated by someone below the age of sixteen (16), whereas personally identifiable information about the owner / webmaster is present in the website. This provision is made having in mind the relevant legislation regarding children online privacy protection, namely COPPA and EU Directive 95/46;
2. The non existence of a clear Privacy Policy that ensures the visitors' privacy and safety whenever personal information is collected in any of the site's activities (i.e. tests, surveys, inquiries, polls, etc.). It must be detailed how the site intends to use and display gathered information;
   1. The point above applies specially to sites targetted at children, or where age is collected to provide any kind of service. Read the requirements for children sites at our Children Online Privacy and Safety Policy.
3. In any site selling products or services and accepting payments online, the non existence of a detailed information about the transaction, including shipping and delivery, refund policy, secure processing of the credit card details, etc. It must be clearly stated if the transaction is being done in a secure location or not.
4. Whenever cookies are used in the site, this must be stated in the Privacy Policy, describing for what purpose are the cookies used and what is the content of the cookie. This applies also to cookies used by third-party resources;
5. The existence of un-moderated chat rooms; sites with chat rooms are required to have strict and rigid safety and disclosure rules, as well as a prior registration leading to proper identification of the user before allowance to enter the chat room is granted. In case a moderated and supervised chat room is available from the site, a ICRA or similar labeling is mandatory;

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IV. When assessing the site's interaction with the user.

1. The imposition of signing a "guest book" or participating in an inquiry, survey and similar and checking the visitor's identity by using a (simulated or real) login prior to be granted the access to the main page and the denial of authorization if the visitor's explicitly refuses to do so;
2. The site requests a pre-register. We will not review sites requesting a "user login", even if such login is provided. This includes web-based groups such as Yahoo or MSN groups, message boards and/or community forums;
3. The site requests the participation in any voting for some kind of "Top List" (or similar) or to sign any "guest book", by means of a "pop-up" window or message box being displayed as soon as the visitor enters the site and the periodic request for the visitor's vote after the explicit refuse (by clicking a "cancel" button or closing the pop-up window) in participating;
4. The existence of third-party advertising "pop-up" window(s) or message boxes (not related to the site's content) when entering the site and even if this is understood to be imposed by the ISP in exchange for the site's free hosting;

The existence of any of the items described above will cause the site's immediate and irreversible disqualification, without further notice.

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