For more than 40 years, earning and maintaining the trust of our readers has been our top priority at PCMag. Our editorial team is dedicated to the following principles, which ensure that we always deliver high-quality service journalism you can rely upon. To learn more about who we are and what we do, see our editorial masthead.
Excellence
- At PCMag, we’re committed to world-class, original technology journalism.
- We develop our stories through testing, research, and interviews, along with product and industry experience.
- Our reviews are based on test results that remain consistent across like products. PC Lab's testing methodologies are designed to deliver accurate, repeatable, objective results, and we work hard to continually evolve our testing methods.
Independence
- PCMag is the independent guide to technology.
- Editorial coverage is determined solely by the editorial team for the benefit of our audience.
- Editorial reviews, recommendations, and conclusions are crafted without any personal, advertising, marketing, or other business considerations. Our affiliate marketing team places and optimizes buying links on some of our pages; if you buy through those links, we may earn commissions. Those pages are tagged with appropriate affiliate disclosures.
- Our editorial team does not make paid endorsements, nor do we produce paid content. We have a marketing team that works with vendors to create branded content, and that content is disclosed as advertising.
- PCMag's parent is Ziff Davis, a media company that also owns several software and SaaS products. Since we cover the full technology realm, we routinely test, evaluate, and report on those products, and we disclose our relationship in those stories.
- Editorial staffers cannot accept any compensation or gifts of significant value from vendors including paid travel or press junkets. PCMag pays for travel expenses including airfare and hotel for event coverage. Our team members may not own stock in companies within our coverage area.
Trust
- We strive to create honest, objective editorial reviews and reporting.
- There are no paid reviews on our website, and we do not accept unsolicited content submissions or link requests. We do not employ artificial intelligence (AI) tools to create original content.
- We work with vendors and will sign and honor embargoes to provide timely and accurate information to our readers. Embargoes define the timing of coverage, not its scope, nature, or editorial perspective.
- During the testing and review process, we give vendors the opportunity to address concerns as we discover them. We do not, however, accept preconditions or allow vendors to preview our reviews before publication.
- Evaluation software provided for testing shall not be distributed beyond the PCMag offices. Hardware products loaned for evaluation remain the property of the vendor and are typically returned within 90 days (or earlier at the request of the vendor). On occasion, we will keep a product longer to evaluate it for an extended time period.
For more information, contact PCMag.