Data + Recommendation Ethics

The promise

Celestial Somm is built to help people make better wine decisions without requiring them to become wine experts first. The data generated by those decisions can also teach us something about how people discover wine. Those two goals only work together if the recommendation remains trustworthy.

1. Recommendations are not for sale

A producer, importer, retailer, advertiser, or other commercial partner cannot pay to become your recommendation. If Celestial Somm ever includes sponsored content, affiliate economics, or paid placement, that material should be visibly separate from independent recommendation logic.

2. Uncertainty beats invention

Wine labels can be hard to read. Vintages change. Tiny producers have inconsistent web footprints. When identity or evidence is uncertain, Celestial Somm should say so, ask for another angle, or explain the limitation rather than quietly invent a confident answer.

3. Small producers should not lose because they are small

Commercial reach is not the same thing as quality. A producer with less marketing, distribution, search visibility, or review coverage should not automatically be treated as a worse recommendation. Evidence standards still matter, but popularity is not the same as merit.

4. Choice is not the same thing as recommendation

We want to distinguish what Celestial Somm recommended from what a person actually chose. “Neither” and “kept looking” are legitimate outcomes. The product should learn from disagreement rather than treating every recommendation as a success.

5. Aggregated insight, not named drinking dossiers

Celestial Somm may use aggregated or de-identified patterns to understand questions such as what people search for, compare, reject, choose, enjoy, substitute, or consider too expensive.

We do not want the producer-intelligence business to depend on selling named individual palate or drinking profiles. Market insight should describe patterns, not turn a person's Cellar into a commercial dossier.

6. No consumption-pressure mechanics

We do not design streaks, rewards, or status systems around drinking frequency or volume. Celestial Somm can make discovery more useful and more fun without rewarding people for consuming alcohol more often.

7. Astrology is a discovery language, not secret targeting

Astrology is part of Celestial Somm's voice and discovery experience. Producer-facing or market-facing intelligence should translate user behavior into ordinary product and market attributes rather than presenting zodiac identity as a hidden commercial targeting profile.

8. We expect this page to evolve

New product features will create new edge cases. We will update these principles when necessary, but the core idea should remain simple: the user's trust in the recommendation matters more than a short-term commercial advantage.

Questions or concerns can be sent through the Contact form.