Legal
The scope of our claims
This page exists because in January 2025 the Federal Trade Commission took action against an accessibility vendor over its marketing claims. We read every sentence on this site against that complaint and cut anything that would not survive the reading. This is the result, and it is part of our terms of service.
What a Certistate Statement is
- An automated test of pages we could reach, run in a real browser.
- A list of failures we can prove against specific WCAG 2.2 Level AA success criteria, with the code and a screenshot for each.
- A stated coverage figure: how many of the 55 criteria the Assessment actually decided.
- A named list of every criterion automation could not decide, and what checking each one involves.
What a Certistate Statement is not
- Not a conformance claim. A Statement with no Findings means no automated failure was found. It does not mean the criterion passes.
- Not a certification. No body certifies websites as accessible, and we are not one.
- Not an audit. An audit involves a person exercising judgement against every criterion. An Assessment is an input to one.
- Not legal advice, and not a defence to any claim.
- Not a remediation. We change nothing on your site.
- Not complete. A free Assessment covers a capped number of pages and cannot see content behind a login or behind an interaction we did not perform.
Sentences we will not print
| The claim | Why we will not make it |
|---|---|
| “Make your site ADA compliant” | No tool can. Compliance is a legal state, not an output of an engine. |
| “WCAG compliant in one line of code” | A single script cannot change the markup that causes the failures. |
| “98% accessible” | That number measures the rules a tool ran, not the standard. Ours prints coverage instead. |
| “Certified accessible” | Nobody certifies websites. There is no authority to issue such a certificate. |
| “Protects you from lawsuits” | Nothing sold as software protects anyone from a claim. |
| “Fully automated audit” | An audit involves human judgement by definition. An Assessment is not one. |
| “Fixes issues automatically” | We change nothing on your site. We record. |
The one claim we do make
A Certistate Statement tells you, accurately, what automated testing found and what it could not decide. Everything else on this site is written to stay inside that sentence.
If you find a sentence that breaks this
Tell us and we will change it. That includes anything in a Statement, a marketing page, an email we sent you, or a reply from us. How to reach us.