[throwawaymaths]

"UL" is not just a label, it's one of the biggest nongovernmental product safety testing organization. I don't know where it stands relative to consumer reports.

> insurance companies

UL stands for underwriter's (aka insurers) laboratories

[dlcarrier]

Consumer reports does reviews, whereas underwriter's laboratories (UL) performs failure testing. What UL does is a magnitude more in depth, even considering how much more in-depth Consumer Reports reviews are than most news sources.

[throwawaymaths]

Sure I just meant by volume and scope

[swores]

I don't think they mean "just a label" as in "not worth caring about", they just meant that the label is an indicator of quality, not the cause of quality, and as such products without the label aren't automatically bad products, they just have less evidence about their quality.

For that point, yes it is "just a label", even though the context behind the label / the label's meaning is very important.

[not_the_fda]

While technically true. Companies are in the business of maximizing profits and they will cut corners if they can get away with it. A company interested in selling on the quality end of the spectrum will get the UL certification. A company interested in selling at the cheep end of the spectrum won't and likely cut corners to make the item as cheep as possible.

[xp84]

That's what I meant -- it's a pretty important label in my opinion.

[throwawaymaths]

ok, that makes sense.