Research / Resolved Challenges
Resolved Scoring Challenges
When vendors, customers, or independent researchers challenge a specific scoring decision in the EFROS US AI Vendor Governance Index, we re-verify the cited public source against vendor documentation and publish a verdict. This page is the public record of those resolutions — part of the EFROS accountability commitment to show that the challenge process is real and that the Index responds to evidence.
How resolution works
Every challenge moves through a four-stage lifecycle. The submitter receives confirmation immediately; resolutions land here only after a verdict is recorded.
- submitted — the challenge is received via the vendor-page challenge form. We log the cited cell, the proposed score, the public source URL, and the submitter's contact information. A confirmation email goes out within minutes.
- under_review — an EFROS researcher pulls the cited source, compares it to the current scoring rubric, and checks for any newer vendor-published evidence that supersedes it. Most resolutions take fewer than 14 calendar days.
- verdict — the researcher records one of three decisions: accepted (the proposed score is correct and the cell will be updated), rejected (the existing score stands and we explain why), deferred (we need more evidence or the change is material enough to wait for a full re-audit).
- resolved — once the verdict and reasoning are recorded, the challenge publishes here. Accepted challenges ship in the next quarterly edition; material accepted changes are also called out in the mid-quarter changelog so buyers see them sooner.
How verdicts are anonymized
We treat the accountability surface and the submission record as two different things. The submission record stays in our private research log with full contact information so we can follow up. The public page strips identifying information before anything renders.
- Never published: submitter name, email address, company name, IP address, browser user-agent, or referring URL.
- Published: the requester role category only (Vendor representative / Vendor customer / Independent researcher / Other). This category is not identifying on its own — it tells readers who tends to challenge what.
- Verdict reasoning: written by EFROS researchers with the explicit assumption that it will be public. We do not paraphrase or sanitize the public-facing notes — what you see is what was recorded at resolution time.
Resolutions
Challenge a scoring decision
If a vendor's score on a specific axis doesn't match the most recent public evidence — a new BAA, a new certification, a documented policy change — open the vendor's deep-dive page from the Index and submit a challenge via the form at the bottom of that page. We respond within 14 days with a verdict that publishes here.
Edition-over-edition score movements are also recorded in the Index Changelog. Resolved challenges that result in score updates appear in both places.