GATE TRUST Policy

RANKING and RATING

Conflict of Interest

AUDITING and ENFORCEMENT

INTRODUCTION

Global Alliance of Trusted Experts, the name says much! this is an elite group of highly paid professionals, specialists, and experts all of which, hopefully, can be trusted: trusted to do any work they agree to; trusted to follow the rules; trusted to represent employers/contractors appropriately – somebody you'd like to do business with. As membership into GATE is primarily by invitation, the vast majority of GATE Members can and should be trusted, however any large population of humans will contain some percentage that will try to game the system; they'll cheat, lie or otherwise act in an untrustworthy fashion. It is probably not possible to stop all people from trying, but it is possible to look hard for them and rigidly and ruthlessly take action against them when you find it (which has a desired side-effect of stopping a great number of people from being dishonest). .

It is not feasible and probably not possible for GATE to monitor all activities of all GATE Members at all times and, in fact, to do so would be horrendously invasive and far too “Big Brother” to work within the GATE Way to Success! However, it is vital that GATE Members have some ability to extend a web of trust to GATE Management, to other GATE Members, and to GATE Vendors. It is equally important that GATE Clients can have a view into that web of trust so that they can confidentially work with GATE Members.

GATE TRUST SYSTEM GUIDING PRINCIPLES

1. Trust is not something that is granted, it is earned; it is earned through our actions and attitudes as measured by the people we interact with.

    

2. Transparency is required for trust to be granted; only after trust is granted is secrecy acceptable (trust is necessary to be confident the secrecy isn't hiding subversive activity).

    

3. Not only must GATE Members be able to trust the membership, they must be able to trust the GATE Trust System itself. GATE (the corporation) must be squeaky-clean … an impartial, unbiased, manager and advocate of the Members of GATE Village.

    

4. Members should be able to influence their individual Trust Score through deliberate actions, however Members should not be aware of the actual Trust Score calculation (to guard against “gaming” the system).

    

5. The GATE Trust System is about Trust; not competency, personality, or any other quality (desirable or not).

    

GATE: Ranking Policy (the Subjective Point of View)

Ranking is the process of assigning a hierarchical value of trustworthiness of this person or entity, a value between 1 and 1,000 with the default and expected setting of “500” for new business acquaintances. This equates with “not enough information to RANK”. Ranking is voluntary, inherently subjective and always confidential.

RANKING IS VOLUNTARY

Every GATE Member is encouraged but is under no obligation to rank every other GATE Member they have had any interaction with inside GATE Village. GATE will enter a value of 500 for every new entry in a Members' RANK table, GATE will also track whether or not a particular RANK table record has been modified by the Member. RANKINGS set directly by a Member carry more weight within the GATE Trust System than those set by the system even if the RANK value is the same.

RANKING IS SUBJECTIVE

While GATE provides a scale of 1-1,000 for the RANKING values and expects that 1 is the least and 1,000 the most trustworthy for each Member's table, and uses the default value of 500 for initial entries, GATE offers no specific advice as to how Members should RANK other Members or what it might mean to be ranked, say, 765 on any particular Member's table.

RANKING IS CONFIDENTIAL

Individual RANK values are confidential information for the use of the Member doing the ranking only. GATE Members are forbidden from asking another Member to divulge their RANK value and while GATE Members are free to discuss the details of their own ranking as they so choose, they must understand they are under no obligation to do so and, in fact, GATE Management recommends all Members stay clear of the subject.

GATE: Rating Policy – Actions Speak Louder than Words

Talk is one thing, actions are another. Fast talking, slick individuals have managed to convince many people to let go of their hard-earned money … but if those people had known of the previous actions of the fast-talkers, they might well have been prepared for them.

With the principle of TRANSPARENCY guiding us, RATINGS are mandatory assessments of the trustworthiness of a party to a business transaction conducted within GATE Village. All RATINGS are completely open (subject to the GATE Confidentiality Policy), all GATE Members are able to view all RATINGS in the system and be able to determine the parties to the business transaction.

While Members are free to adjust any RATING they have previously completed, the original RATING and any modifications made will always be viewable by all GATE Members.

Radical and or frequent modifications to RATINGS will be flagged through the regular system audits and may trigger a GATE Trust Investigation. While everybody makes mistakes and the occasional modification to a RATING will be tolerated, in general Members are expected to stand behind their RATINGS and should provide a explanatory comment whenever a RATING is modified.

RATINGS are one of three values:

“Trustworthy” – the party to the transaction being RATED proved to live up to their word, they provided the expertise they claimed to have, they met any deadlines agreed to, they invoiced the correct amount or paid on time.

“Trustworthy with minor issues” – the party to the transaction being RATED, on balance, lived up to their end of any agreements in place but there were small inconsistencies, deadlines missed, extra charges, exaggerated expertise. The issues did not have any 3^rd party consequences and were not serious in nature.

“Untrustworthy” – the party to the transaction being RATED falsely represented their expertise, grossly or repeatedly missed deadlines, charged significantly more than estimated/agreed, or there was Accounts Receivable difficulty.

In truth, trust is a binary equation; in any particular situation one was either trustworthy or one was not. However, GATE recognizes that many people see trust in shades of gray and require an option that is somewhere in between trustworthy and untrustworthy. As a matter of policy, GATE will not see a single “Trustworthy with minor issues” RATING worthy of a GATE Trust Investigation; GATE will, however, investigate all RATINGS of “Untrustworthy”.

GATE: Conflict of Interest Policy

TRUST is paramount within GATE, GATE Members must know and believe that they will be treated completely fairly at all times regardless of any external factors outside of their control. GATE Members must be confident that any service, collateral, advice or mentoring provided is done so with the best ability of the GATE Employee involved in an unbiased and professional manner. GATE Members are encouraged to read and understand this policy to see how it protects their interests as it binds GATE Employees.

1. This “GATE: Conflict of Interest Policy” (The Policy) is in effect and in force for all GATE Directors, GATE Officers, and GATE Employees.

2. There are no exceptions, exemptions, modifications, or riders permitted to adjust The Policy in any way; it must be agreed to in full as a condition of employment and/or a right to sit on the Board of Directors.

3. The Policy forbids any business interaction between a person subject to The Policy and any GATE Member involving any other 3^rd party, regardless of the status of that person or entity.

4. The Policy forbids the use of any GATE technology, process, application, or any other corporate operation to conduct business outside of GATE sanctioned work as per appropriate job function.

5. The Policy allows external business dealings with third parties that are not in any way connected with GATE, such arrangements must cease and desist if said third party should become a GATE Member.

6. The Policy forbids any TRUST representation or endorsement of any GATE Member on behalf of the corporation – persons subject to this policy may obtain permission from The Board to Rank and / or act as a Reference for GATE Members to other GATE Members.

   1. As The Policy forbids business relationships between persons subject to The Policy and GATE Members, there is no ability to offer any Rating and, indeed, The Policy forbids it.

   2. The Policy forbids the acceptance of any money from GATE Members for References, the standard Reference fee schedule must be waived

7. The Policy forbids the acceptance of any gifts or any size, type, quantity, or quality if it can reasonably be determined that the gift would have any monetary value at all if it is intended to be a reward for services performed for or connected with GATE – The Policy allows the acceptance of compliments, hugs, handshakes, kind thoughts, public writing, and, as per all GATE Interactions, they are subject to Rating and Ranking.

   1. The Policy recognizes that persons subject to The Policy may form or even have preexisting relationships with some GATE Members, GATE Vendors and/or GATE Clients and may therefore be presented with the occasional birthday or other holiday gift – The Policy demands full disclosure of receipt of any such gifts to GATE (though the disclosure is a matter of private record to be used only by GATE to assure compliance). The Board of Directors may decide that some gifts exceed normal value boundaries and must be returned or somehow modified to bring into compliance.

8. The Policy forbids the use of any information or knowledge gained as a direct result of involvement with GATE that has not been made public (published on an unauthenticated Internet Web Site) to further the interests of any person or entity connected to the person subject to The Policy. A legal “Chinese Wall” must be erected between any person subject to The Policy and any GATE Member, GATE Vendor, or GATE Client as defined in the official GATE Glossary.

9. The Policy's intent is to ensure that all aspects of running GATE: Global Alliance of Trusted Experts Inc. is free an distinct from all uses of the services GATE provides to it's Members, Vendors and Clients. Any person subject to this policy that is found attempting to find ways to violate the spirit behind the policy is in breach of the policy, regardless of whether they are successful.

10. Severability and survivability – should any part of this policy found to be legally void, the remaining parts of the policy will remain in effect.

GATE Trust Investigations

Inevitably in any Trust system, open or anonymous, there will be disputes and there must be a predefined process for addressing disputes. As an inherently subjective system, the GATE Trust System will lead to many honest differences of opinion and there will always be people who will misuse the GATE Trust System, perhaps in a retaliatory fashion. The best approach to such problems is for all affected parties to negotiate a mutually satisfactory outcome. This negotiation will itself be public in the sense that while a rating can be changed and it will be the changed value that is used in any Trust Score calculation, the fact that it was changed cannot be hidden from view of other members in good standing. Thus there is an incentive built in to get the rating correct the first time for public disputes can be unpleasant and embarrassing.

Even with such motivations and incentives, unresolved disputes will happen and when they do each party may issue a GATE Trust Investigation Request. Each request will be handled by GATE management according to the published GATE Trust Policy. While the policy remains the authoritative

source of information regarding the investigation process, the following fairly describes that policy.

1. GATE is impartial and fair minded, while the final results of a Trust Investigation will be made available to the GATE Membership, no parties will be identified during the Investigation itself. GATE will maintain complete confidentiality on all matters until the conclusion of the Trust Investigation.

2. GATE can only investigate business transactions conducted within the GATE Village, it has no authority and will not be involved in business transactions conducted outside the virtual confines of the GATE Village. THE EXCEPTION TO THIS RULE IS THAT GATE EMPLOYEES MUST ALWAYS FOLLOW THE CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLICY WHICH IS IN FORCE OUTSIDE THE CONFINES OF GATE VILLAGE.

3. GATE allows the written Investigation Request to be a part of the investigation

4. GATE allows the party which the Trust Investigation Request refers to a rebuttal in writing and will include that rebuttal in it's investigation.

5. GATE can and will use any and all audit or other logs of GATE Village transactions during the course of it's investigation.

6. GATE can and will use any previously registered information objects (contracts, Letters of Intent, recordings, etc) by any affected parties including parties related to the transaction but not explicitly a part of the Trust Investigation.

7. GATE may conduct interviews but if so it will conduct interviews with any and all named parties in the request and the requester(s) as well.

8. GATE may use non-registered information objects only with the mutual consent of all named parties in the Investigation Request and the requester(s).

9. GATE may conduct 3^rd party interviews only with the mutual consent of all named parties in the Investigation Request and the requester(s).

10. GATE will review all available material, conduct any interviews it deems required and render one of three decisions:

    1. Guilty of Breach of Trust

    2. Not-Guilty of Breach of Trust

    3. Inconclusive – there was not enough evidence to render a decision

11. GATE will issue its verdict privately to all affected parties and allow a single appeal of the decision by any party. The appeal must be accompanied with something new to consider, it may contain non-GATE registered collateral and other non-GATE Village related material, though GATE is under no obligation to consider such material and, in general, will reject the material as inadmissible (exceptions generally being made for notarized and other legally-binding and verifiable methods of document management).

    1. In general GATE doesn't insist the work be done within GATE Village, it is simply a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. An information object (damning to a party) is assumed to be a forgery unless it can generally be taken as fact in a court of law (not just evidence but evidence of fact).

    2. GATE Registered information objects are trusted implicitly (GATE Village utilizes PKI technology to ensure the trust), appeals may point out relevant objects missed or presumed missed in the original investigation.

    3. Non-registered but digitally signed documents where the Certificate Authority is recognized by GATE Village as official signers are acceptable during appeal processes only, self-signed certificates will not be accepted as authoritative.

    4. Non-registered but notarized documents are acceptable during appeal processes only

    5. Signed affidavits by other GATE Members not officially a party to the transaction may be allowed during the appeal process only as long as the material is pertinent to trust and the particular business transaction under review – such Members affidavits are subject to the GATE Trust Policy.

    6. GATE will not accept information objects of any kind not meeting the above rules. This includes but is not limited to non-digitally signed emails, contracts in any form, voice mails, memos, web sites, or any other forms of communication that cannot be verified as fact via court-approved programmatic methods (where the “court” is under the laws of Ontario, Canada).

        

12. GATE will not conduct formal hearings or allow presentations or other submissions beyond previously existing collateral as described above, GATE Management will render a verdict based upon the admissible physical evidence only.

13. If there is an appeal then GATE will review all available material, conduct any interviews it deems required and render one of three decisions:

    1. Guilty of Breach of Trust

    2. Not-Guilty of Breach of Trust

    3. Inconclusive

14. There is no further appeal regardless of whether GATE changes its original verdict, once the verdict from the appeal is complete or the time limit for appeal has been reached from the first verdict, the decision is final and may not be reviewed again (with an aim to change it) within or outside of GATE Village.

SANCTIONS

GATE Village is a self-regulating body in charge of enforcing the Community of trust. There is no greater sin within the GATE Village than a Breach of Trust and GATE: Global Alliance of Trusted Experts Inc. has a near-zero¹ tolerance for any Breach of Trust. The default sanction for any Member or Vendor found guilty of Breach of Trust via the GATE Trust Investigation process shall be expulsion from GATE Village. GATE management reserves the right to assign lesser sanctions at its sole discretion as befits the circumstances where alternative sanctions could include “public” (GATE Village) apologies, a reduction in Trust Score, a “Mark of Distrust”, or other mechanisms as may be devised by GATE intended as incentives for other members to not breach their trusted relationships.

For the purposes of GATE Trust Investigations, GATE Vendors are equivalent to GATE Members and are subject to the same sort of sanctions – this is akin to “Truth in Advertising”.

It must be understood that the integrity of GATE Village and of the GATE Trust Score is of paramount importance to GATE and GATE Shareholders. No member or vendor is more important than that integrity and that integrity will not be compromised for the sake of any GATE Member, Vendor or Employee..

GATE Employees and GATE Management are subject to the GATE Employee: Conflict of Interest Policy, which is more stringent than the GATE Trust Policy. There is only one sanction for any GATE Employee: termination of employment. GATE Employees have all the same rights of appeal as GATE Members. GATE Management will appoint an independent outside firm to conduct any Trust Investigations (with merit) against or initiated from GATE Employees (according to the same Trust Investigation process as followed by GATE) and GATE will abide by the verdict of this firm.

Confidentiality of Proceedings

What happens in GATE Village stays in GATE Village; except as may be lawfully ordered through subpoena or other means recognized within the laws of Ontario, Canada, all GATE Trust Investigation Reports, verdicts, sanctions, proceedings, and/or findings will remain within the GATE Village community. All GATE Members agree upon membership to uphold the confidentiality of GATE Village matters including but not restricted to GATE Trust Investigations. Except where GATE Members may reasonably believe there exists illegal activity, in which case GATE Members are under a GATE Trust Obligation to report such activity, GATE Members may not divulge any details of any GATE Village transaction to non-GATE Members and that confidentiality remains intact even if and when the Member ceases to be a Member (regardless of the circumstances of their leaving).

Because GATE is not a court of law, because it will not take on that burden of proof, because it doesn't allow for “Fair Representation” or offer any “right to confront accusers”, it would be patently unfair and very likely libelous to release any details of any Trust Investigation, including what parties might be involved and what sanctions are levied.

GATE will aggressively and proactively prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any GATE Entity that publicly (outside the confines of the GATE Village) breaches the GATE Trust Policy. Such breaches are seen as an attack on the integrity of GATE itself and GATE will defend it's integrity relentlessly.

False Investigation Requests and False Information

It is a Breach of Trust to knowingly make a false accusation of Breach of Trust of another GATE Entity. While reasonable people can and do disagree at times, if in GATE Management's opinion there was no basis for the initial Trust Investigation Request, GATE Management may make a summary finding of Breach of Trust against the requester and issue sanctions as above.

The same accusation of Breach of Trust and the same sanctions will be provided to any party knowingly providing false evidence to any GATE Trust Investigation. While GATE does not represent itself as a court of law, nor will it generally function as a court system, it does work under the less stringent Civil Law notion of “preponderance of the evidence” rather than “beyond reasonable doubt”.

The best defense against false accusations is use of the GATE Registration System of Record during the entire business transaction; these records will always be admissible by GATE and treated as de-facto truth. The GATE Registration System of Record is only accessible by the GATE Information Security Office, which conducts any GATE Trust Investigations. Contents of the GATE Registration System of Record exist only for the duration of the business transaction (plus alloted time for issuing a Trust Investigation and any required time for the appeal process to complete), they will be deleted as soon as GATE can be certain they will not be required for any GATE Trust Investigation.

The Spirit is what is Important

This notion of the GATE Trust Score and Trusted Experts is more than simply a new technology and a new marketing gimmick to relieve people of their money, it is a new way of doing business. Together as an Alliance of Independent Business Concerns comes the ability to level the playing field, to allow the small and medium consulting firms and independent experts alike a chance to offer their expertise to an audience they normally might not have access to without aligning themselves with much larger concerns (who themselves will take a cut on business and often have agendas that go beyond the original request).

That Alliance is nothing more than words and no different than so-called “Facebook Friends” without the GATE Trust Policy in place and in force. GATE Members are not expected to just follow the Trust Policy, they are expected to embrace it! There is no need to shout it from the hilltop (that is GATE's job), but there is a requirement to want it to succeed, to be active within the Policy rather than simply complying to a policy.

Thus it should be understood that there can only be a zero-tolerance policy on any attempt to override not just the letter of the Trust Policy, but the Spirit and Philosophy of the Trust Policy; all such attempts will be seen as a Breach of Trust and subject to the sanctions outlined above. This includes but is not limited to any attempt to adjust the calculated GATE Trust Score outside of the prescribed GATE Village ways, it also includes any agreements for reciprocal ratings, rankings or any other attempt to subvert the authority and / or authenticity of the GATE Trust Score.

GATE Management's Authority is Final

GATE has no authority over any business transaction within or without GATE Village and offers absolutely no remedy or warranty for any failed transaction between any parties (unless one of those parties is a GATE Employee). This remains true regardless of any information objects that may be put in the GATE Registered System of Records All business transactions are between independent business concerns and have exactly the same legal effect with or without the existence or use of GATE Village. GATE does not have the authority nor the intent to involve itself in such independent business transactions before, during or after the transaction.

When a Trust Investigation Request is received (or an investigation is triggered due to GATE monitoring and auditing activities), GATE reviews the activities only as they relate to the trustworthiness of the parties involved – and thus GATE feels it reasonable not to allow an endless stream of appeals and other legal proceedings. All GATE Members and Vendors agree to give up their right to sue GATE Employees, Directors, or Officers for any Trust Investigation related activity.

GATE Management's Authority is absolute and final, any verdict is final and the only remedy a GATE Member has is to leave GATE Village. That being said, GATE Village only works if the GATE Membership believes it will work and so GATE Management will continue to work with the Membership to revise and update the GATE Trust Policy and GATE Conflict of Interest Policy so as to meet the Mission of GATE: Global Alliance of Trusted Experts Inc., to provide an on-line community where Experts and Entrepreneurs gather and connect to stimulate new business and compete for business opportunities within an Community OF TRUST.