Trust without assumptions.

BLACK OWNED HERE. listings begin with owner-controlled submissions and review. The eligibility standard for a Black-owned business listing is at least 51% owned, operated, and controlled by one or more Black people.

• Owners must sign the majority Black-ownership attestation before submission.
• Attestation is not the same as public certification.
• Verification labels appear only when a corresponding verification record exists.
• Paid visibility must never purchase credibility, ownership labels, or review outcomes.
• Corrections enter an administrative queue before any public information changes.
• Listings may be suspended when accuracy, eligibility, or safety concerns require review.

Business-existence checks

A listing should never become public just because someone typed a name into a form. The production workflow is designed around account ownership, confirmed contact methods, and administrative review before publication.

• Email confirmation is required before a submitted listing can enter review.
• Owners must be signed in, and every draft is tied to an account.
• Public website, social profile, domain, phone, or location details may be checked when available.
• Administrators review the submitted version before anything appears publicly.
• Obvious gibberish, unsafe content, unverifiable claims, or spam is rejected or sent back for changes.
• SMS verification can confirm control of a phone number when the configured provider is enabled, but it does not replace ownership review.

Quick drafts from an owner's website

A busy owner may authorize BLACK OWNED HERE. to read public pages on the business's own website and prepare a private first draft. The reader is bounded, respects a site-wide robots.txt prohibition, does not sign in or bypass restrictions, and does not copy competitor directories. Text, contact details, links, and supported images are suggestions for the owner to review—not verified facts.

• The owner's permission, source URL, pages read, and warnings are kept privately.
• Low-confidence or policy-blocked categories require the owner to choose.
• The owner must still sign the majority Black-ownership attestation.
• Every express submission and image uses the same administrator review as the full form.
• Nothing from the website reader is published automatically.

What verification does not mean

Contact confirmation, ownership attestation, or documentation review does not guarantee quality, licensing, safety, pricing, availability, customer satisfaction, or legal compliance unless that exact claim has been checked and labeled.