How Whownit reaches a factual statement

Companies connect to countries in different ways. We store each kind of relationship separately, each with its own evidence, so a single company can show — for example — ownership in one country, headquarters in another and manufacturing in a third.

Origin

Where the company was founded or first incorporated. For brands that changed hands, origin refers to where the brand began; later history is shown as separate connections.

Headquarters

The company’s principal executive office, as stated in its filings, registry records or official materials.

Ownership

How the company is held: public (shares traded on a stock exchange with no controlling parent), private, subsidiary (controlled by another company), state-owned, nonprofit or cooperative.

Parent company

The company that directly owns or controls it. “Independent” means no parent company is recorded.

Ultimate parent

The entity at the top of the ownership chain, when it differs from the direct parent. “Public shareholders” means ownership is spread across a stock exchange rather than held by one controlling owner.

Manufacturing

Where products are made — by the company itself or by contract manufacturers. Shown as N/A when it doesn’t apply (for example, pure software) and Unknown when it applies but hasn’t been verified.

R&D

Where the company runs its own research and development.

Operations

Offices, employees and commercial operations. We record these only when they are material and sourced — we don’t list every country a company sells in.

Every country connection is marked Direct or Indirect.

Direct

The company itself has the relationship: it was founded there, is headquartered there, owns a facility there or employs people there.

Indirect

The relationship runs through another entity — a parent company, a subsidiary, or a supplier such as a contract manufacturer.

A facility the company lists as its own property in its filings counts as direct, even when it is held through a subsidiary.

Each company page leads with one country — in its headline and summary card — so the most common question is answered first. We choose it mechanically, from the sourced connections: origin and headquarters count most, ownership next, then manufacturing, R&D and employees, then other operations. Indirect connections count half. The country with the most substantial relationships leads.

This is a way of organizing the page, not a label. Every other country connection is listed on the same page with its evidence.

What “no identified … ownership” means

When we say an alternative has, for example, “no identified Israeli ownership under Whownit criteria”, it means that in the sources we have reviewed the company was not founded, headquartered or owned — directly, through a parent, or by a disclosed major shareholder — in that country. It is not a guarantee: it does not cover suppliers, undisclosed or minority investors, customers or the nationality of staff. We show this wording only when every listed alternative’s own data supports it.

Material claims need at least one source. We prefer, in this order:

1. 1Regulators and government records — company registries, official notices
2. 2Official filings — securities regulators such as the SEC, stock exchanges
3. 3Annual reports and investor relations — published by the company
4. 4Company websites — about, legal and imprint pages
5. 5High-quality journalism — established news organizations
6. 6Trusted business databases — reputable, attributable datasets

We don’t publish a factual claim based only on anonymous boycott lists, social media posts, forums, AI-generated summaries, search-engine spam or unverified user submissions. Tips from any of these can start research; they can’t finish it.

On each company page, sources are listed with their publisher, type and the date we accessed them — primary sources first.

Confidence describes the evidence behind a claim — not a judgement about the company.

• High confidence

  Confirmed by at least one primary source — a regulator, an official filing or the company’s own published material — with no credible conflicting evidence.

• Medium confidence

  Supported by reliable secondary sources, or by a primary source that is ambiguous, partial or dated.

• Low confidence

  Limited or indirect evidence. Shown only with its sources, and prioritized for re-checking.

• Unverified

  Not yet supported by acceptable sources. Unverified claims are never published.

A company page shows an overall confidence level; individual connections below high confidence are labelled where they appear.

“Last checked” is the date a person last verified the facts on a page against its sources. It is not the date the page was last edited or rebuilt, so a recent technical change never makes old information look fresh.

We re-check published companies at least once a year, after each annual filing for listed companies, and as soon as we learn of an acquisition, merger, relocation or credible correction. Prices shown next to alternatives carry their own check date.

Some organizations publish lists of companies they target or recommend. If Whownit shows such a classification, it is always labelled as the campaign’s own view, attributed to the organization and dated.

A campaign classification is never presented as a Whownit finding, and it never adds, removes or changes the verified facts on a page.

A GS1 barcode prefix does not establish manufacturing country.

The first digits of a product barcode show which national GS1 organization issued the number to the brand owner — for example, numbers beginning 729 are issued through GS1 Israel. A company can register barcodes in one country, manufacture in another and be owned from a third. Whownit never infers manufacturing, origin or ownership from a barcode.

Alternatives help people compare options. We may earn a commission when someone follows a link to an alternative, and a partner may pay for a sponsored placement. Sponsored alternatives are always labelled “Sponsored”.

Payment can never:

• add or remove a country connection
• change ownership, origin or headquarters
• change a confidence level or a source
• change the order of facts on a page

If something is wrong or out of date, tell us. Every company page has a Report an error link; a source link makes a report much faster to verify. You can also suggest a company we don’t cover yet.

Each report is reviewed against sources. If it is confirmed, we update the page and its “Last checked” date. Reports are never published, and no one can pay to have a correction accepted or rejected.