# Transparency Certification

> Independent, cross-platform review-authenticity certification for US businesses. We verify that a business's online reviews are authentic and not manipulated.

Transparency Certification is a public directory of businesses that have passed an independent review-authenticity audit. The directory is searchable by location, category, and business name. Every certified business has a detail page with certification status, contact information, and review statistics.

## Directory

- [Browse certified businesses](https://transparencycertified.com/directory)
- [Search businesses](https://transparencycertified.com/directory/search?q={query})
- [Business detail pages](https://transparencycertified.com/business/{name-slug}-{id})
- [Category/city pages](https://transparencycertified.com/certified/{category}/{city-state})

## API

Public read-only REST API. No authentication required.

- [List businesses](https://transparencycertified.com/api/v1/businesses): `GET /api/v1/businesses?q=&category=&city=&state=&zip=&page=1&limit=20`
- [Get business by ID](https://transparencycertified.com/api/v1/businesses/{id}): `GET /api/v1/businesses/{id}` (integer ID, not slug)

Response format: JSON. Pagination via `page` and `limit` params (max 50). List responses include `data`, `total`, `page`, `limit`, `totalPages`.

Rate limit: 50 requests / 10 seconds per IP. Exceeding it returns HTTP 429 with a JSON body containing `retry_after` (seconds) — wait 10 seconds and retry. A full-catalog export at `limit=50` stays under the limit if paced at up to 5 requests/second.

Machine-readable spec (OpenAPI 3.1): https://transparencycertified.com/openapi.json

Agent Skill for this API (install via `npx skills add TransparencyCertified/agent-skills`): https://github.com/TransparencyCertified/agent-skills

## About

- [How certification works](https://transparencycertified.com/how-it-works)
- [Why we built this](https://transparencycertified.com/why-we-built-it)
- [About Transparency Certified](https://transparencycertified.com/about)
- [API documentation](https://transparencycertified.com/docs/api)

## Data

- 7,800+ certified US businesses across 500+ categories
- Coverage: all 50 US states + DC + PR
- Each business record includes: name, address, city, state, category, phone, website, average rating, review count, certification date, certificate ID, plus freshness timestamps (`last_monitored`, `updated_at`)
- The single-business endpoint (`GET /api/v1/businesses/{id}`) additionally returns a `certification` block explaining why the business is certified: the review-authenticity checks performed, their scope and limitations, the audited platform, reviews analyzed, audit date, and owner attestation
- Data updated continuously as new businesses are certified

## Opt-Out

Business representatives can request removal from the directory via [opt-out form](https://transparencycertified.com/opt-out).