Disclosures & Transparency

1. Artificial Intelligence & Automation

ARC & EPOCH utilizes internal automation tools (including language models and specialized parsers) solely as research instruments to scan distributed feeds, monitor GitHub release tags, and cluster related reports.

• No Automated Publishing: Automated scripts cannot write, authorize, or deploy public articles.
• Article-Level Disclosures: Every piece published carries an explicit frontmatter disclosure (none, research, editing, or substantial) indicating how automation assisted the reporting process.
• Zero Synthetic Citations: Quotes, benchmark figures, and citations are never generated by language models. All citations link directly to verified public URLs.

2. Advertising & Monetization

In accordance with our foundational publication principles:

• Disabled AdSense Status: Display advertising (such as Google AdSense) is strictly disabled in v1 behind our PUBLIC_ADS_ENABLED=false feature flag. We do not display programmatic advertisements until an extensive, evergreen library of human-audited technical work has been established.
• Separation of Ads and Content: If advertising slots are activated in future releases, they will be explicitly labeled and isolated in dedicated containers to prevent layout shift. No ads will ever be disguised as editorial cards, download buttons, or system notices.
• No Paywalls: All journalism, benchmarks, and vulnerability briefings are accessible freely without paywalls or forced registration.

3. Affiliate Links & Commercial Relationships

If an article links to a commercial tool, cloud provider, or hardware manufacturer with an affiliate referral code:

• The affiliate relationship is disclosed conspicuously at the top of the article.
• Affiliate considerations have zero influence on benchmark scoring, repository recommendations, or security disclosures.
• If a tool has security flaws or performance regressions, we report them without commercial compromise.

4. Sponsored Content Policy

ARC & EPOCH does not accept undisclosed sponsored articles or paid guest posts. Any sponsored technical deep dive must undergo the same empirical code audit as standard editorial pieces and will be unambiguously marked with a Sponsored Partner designation.