Why “Ethos”

The rules

Written down so they can be argued with. Every change is recorded in the changelog.

1. A company appears when enough people agree, not when enough people post.

   3 verified reviews from 2 different universities. Three students from one university count as one. Below that line nothing is shown — not the name, not a count.

2. Everyone who reviews was actually there.

   Your placement office confirms it from their own records, or a moderator reads your internship agreement and then deletes it. One review per person per company. Anything from the last 3 years counts.

3. Your name is never shown.

   Comments carry a role and a period, not a name — and you can leave those out too. Nothing anywhere records who placed you, so nothing can give it away.

4. Your scores count immediately. Your words are read once first.

   Numbers can't identify anyone, so they go live the moment you're verified. A comment is read by one moderator — is it about the work, could you have seen it — and shown or not. Nobody edits it.

5. Serious things go to a person, not a page.

   Harassment, exploitation, discrimination, feeling unsafe: that goes privately to your university's placement office. They tell the company a concern exists — the category and the period, never who — and the company has 14 days to respond before anything counts publicly. The page only ever shows a number.

6. Where the law is harsh, the page shows numbers only.

   In countries where saying something online about a named company can be a criminal matter, the public page shows scores and no comments. Interns still write. Placement offices still read.

7. The AI has one job.

   It reads a weekly check-in note and decides whether a person needs to be involved. It never advises, never replies, never counsels. We use AI to decide when not to use AI.

Who runs it

Ethos is a pilot, started by Asia Internship Program, a placement provider and a member of The Forum on Education Abroad. That's a conflict of interest and we'd rather say so than hide it: a commons run by one provider isn't a commons.

So the plan is fixed and public. Ethos gets its own legal home. A group of member universities sets the rules, and the provider that started it holds one seat at that table — not the table. The code is open source under the AGPL-3.0 — anyone can run it, and anyone who changes it has to share the change. The aggregate numbers are open. Providers have no role in the review layer and there is nothing for them to buy.

Students free, always. Companies free, always. Universities join free; a paid tier for outcomes and integrations, provider fees for verification tooling, and grants pay for the rest.