The register: the question, the entry format, the inconsistency test
Summary
The document behind /register/. It states the register's sharpest design move: asking whether a company holds a usage record, rather than how much was used, because the first question is answerable by everybody, comparable, and produces a publishable table on day one. The entry format has no verdict field anywhere — company, date asked, exactly what was asked (quoting the published template by version), date replied or silence as at a date, and the reply verbatim with the requester's details removed. Three answers are distinguished and none is penalised for existing: holding and disclosing, holding and refusing, and not holding at all — the last a legitimate data-minimisation choice, recorded neutrally. Its sharpest instrument is the inconsistency test: a company that holds no usage record cannot simultaneously claim personalisation or engagement analytics built on that same data. Three reflexivity defences keep the register from teaching companies to refuse: a published policy page counts as an answer, the good path is published as loudly as the bad, and a first refusal is never published. It closes with the governance the register must publish before its first row.
Key concepts
Key ideas
- Silence is a row, not a blank.
- "We do not hold that" is recorded neutrally — scoring it as evasion would punish privacy and discredit the register in one exchange.
- A founder-led list is a founder's grievances until the selection rule is published.
- The register data lives in a vault, so the move to a neutral domain or non-profit is a re-point, not a migration.
On this site
Published as /register/: the question, the schema, the three-answer model, and the governance page — with zero entries at launch, pending the solicitor review the source itself names as blocking.