First Advantage / Sterling

public employment background-screening and identity-verification company

First Advantage / Sterling

Industry Employment

A public background-screening and identity-verification company that acquired Sterling Check and serves employers with pre-hire and workforce screening. First Advantage/Sterling scores low because it scales private judgment over employment eligibility through criminal, identity, drug, education, and verification data.

Why this matters: This is a major enterprise-screening gatekeeper workers may encounter without choosing.

Letter grade F Malignant High confidence (AI) Rubric gcd-rubric-v1

Final Score -2* F - Malignant
FMALIGNANT-2 tentative score pts

* Tentative scaffolding score. Not human-checked or final.

Base Material15
Bonus+0
Cap35Ownership <= 2 and Governance <= 2
After Cap15
Penalties-17
!Not Verified
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Evaluation Overview

F - Malignant

The score turns mainly on Scale Integrity, with the largest penalty coming from Surveillance Capture.

Strengths

  • Scale Integrity4/5
  • Extraction2/10
  • Loss-Bearing Fidelity2/7

Penalties

  • Surveillance Capture-4
  • Human Harm-3
  • Identity Capture-3
  • Policy Capture-2

Evidence state

  • ConfidenceHigh confidence (AI)
  • ThoroughnessDeveloped (AI)
  • Linked claims16
  • Direct axis claims16
  • Coverage16/16

Scoring Axes
Axis Score Why this score
Ownership
?
Control rights: shareholder-dominated at 0, worker cooperative control at 10.
1 / 10

First Advantage / Sterling's public record identifies its ownership form, institutional type, or public/private/nonprofit/cooperative structure in the employment category.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • First Advantage / Sterling's public record identifies its ownership form, institutional type, or public/private/nonprofit/cooperative structure in the employment category. [1]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record indicates whether binding control sits with shareholders, executives, members, public officials, nonprofit boards, residents, patients, or customers. [2]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's model determines whether money flows primarily to investors and owners or back toward users, members, public value, community services, affordability, or mission delivery. [3]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public materials do not show ordinary workers holding full binding democratic control over the institution. [4]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in an everyday-need category where job loss, illness, rent pressure, family-care obligations, tax compliance, utility dependence, or household instability affects bargaining power. [5]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's product or service can absorb real household, civic, care, housing, energy, or tax-compliance risk, but the record also shows who bears costs when the institution fails or prices rise. [6]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in a market where customers, tenants, patients, taxpayers, utility users, parents, or community members often face switching costs, asymmetric information, or limited choice. [7]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's core service has practical everyday utility, but its integrity depends on pricing, safety, transparency, access, quality, data handling, and accountability. [8]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's scale or category makes its decisions consequential for ordinary U.S. households, patients, tenants, parents, taxpayers, utility customers, or communities. [9]
Governance
?
Binding decision authority: centralized control at 0, democratic stakeholder control at 10.
1 / 10

First Advantage / Sterling's public record indicates whether binding control sits with shareholders, executives, members, public officials, nonprofit boards, residents, patients, or customers.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record identifies its ownership form, institutional type, or public/private/nonprofit/cooperative structure in the employment category. [1]
  • First Advantage / Sterling's public record indicates whether binding control sits with shareholders, executives, members, public officials, nonprofit boards, residents, patients, or customers. [2]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's model determines whether money flows primarily to investors and owners or back toward users, members, public value, community services, affordability, or mission delivery. [3]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public materials do not show ordinary workers holding full binding democratic control over the institution. [4]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in an everyday-need category where job loss, illness, rent pressure, family-care obligations, tax compliance, utility dependence, or household instability affects bargaining power. [5]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's product or service can absorb real household, civic, care, housing, energy, or tax-compliance risk, but the record also shows who bears costs when the institution fails or prices rise. [6]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in a market where customers, tenants, patients, taxpayers, utility users, parents, or community members often face switching costs, asymmetric information, or limited choice. [7]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's core service has practical everyday utility, but its integrity depends on pricing, safety, transparency, access, quality, data handling, and accountability. [8]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's scale or category makes its decisions consequential for ordinary U.S. households, patients, tenants, parents, taxpayers, utility customers, or communities. [9]
Extraction
?
Surplus allocation, wage share, CEO pay ratio, margins, and structured extraction judgment.
2 / 10

First Advantage / Sterling's model determines whether money flows primarily to investors and owners or back toward users, members, public value, community services, affordability, or mission delivery.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record identifies its ownership form, institutional type, or public/private/nonprofit/cooperative structure in the employment category. [1]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record indicates whether binding control sits with shareholders, executives, members, public officials, nonprofit boards, residents, patients, or customers. [2]
  • First Advantage / Sterling's model determines whether money flows primarily to investors and owners or back toward users, members, public value, community services, affordability, or mission delivery. [3]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public materials do not show ordinary workers holding full binding democratic control over the institution. [4]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in an everyday-need category where job loss, illness, rent pressure, family-care obligations, tax compliance, utility dependence, or household instability affects bargaining power. [5]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's product or service can absorb real household, civic, care, housing, energy, or tax-compliance risk, but the record also shows who bears costs when the institution fails or prices rise. [6]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in a market where customers, tenants, patients, taxpayers, utility users, parents, or community members often face switching costs, asymmetric information, or limited choice. [7]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's core service has practical everyday utility, but its integrity depends on pricing, safety, transparency, access, quality, data handling, and accountability. [8]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's scale or category makes its decisions consequential for ordinary U.S. households, patients, tenants, parents, taxpayers, utility customers, or communities. [9]
Labor Sovereignty
?
Worker power: coercive conditions at 0, co-determination or ownership at 7. Employee dissatisfaction matters only when source-backed evidence shows concrete limits on worker agency, such as coercive scheduling, retaliation, wage theft, harassment, unsafe conditions, suppression of worker voice, or extreme turnover.
1 / 7

First Advantage / Sterling's linked public materials do not show ordinary workers holding full binding democratic control over the institution.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record identifies its ownership form, institutional type, or public/private/nonprofit/cooperative structure in the employment category. [1]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record indicates whether binding control sits with shareholders, executives, members, public officials, nonprofit boards, residents, patients, or customers. [2]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's model determines whether money flows primarily to investors and owners or back toward users, members, public value, community services, affordability, or mission delivery. [3]
  • First Advantage / Sterling's public materials do not show ordinary workers holding full binding democratic control over the institution. [4]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in an everyday-need category where job loss, illness, rent pressure, family-care obligations, tax compliance, utility dependence, or household instability affects bargaining power. [5]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's product or service can absorb real household, civic, care, housing, energy, or tax-compliance risk, but the record also shows who bears costs when the institution fails or prices rise. [6]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in a market where customers, tenants, patients, taxpayers, utility users, parents, or community members often face switching costs, asymmetric information, or limited choice. [7]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's core service has practical everyday utility, but its integrity depends on pricing, safety, transparency, access, quality, data handling, and accountability. [8]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's scale or category makes its decisions consequential for ordinary U.S. households, patients, tenants, parents, taxpayers, utility customers, or communities. [9]
Solidarity with the Unemployed
?
Treatment of exits and nonworkers, including severance, redeployment, and non-competes.
1 / 7

First Advantage / Sterling operates in an everyday-need category where job loss, illness, rent pressure, family-care obligations, tax compliance, utility dependence, or household instability affects bargaining power.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record identifies its ownership form, institutional type, or public/private/nonprofit/cooperative structure in the employment category. [1]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record indicates whether binding control sits with shareholders, executives, members, public officials, nonprofit boards, residents, patients, or customers. [2]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's model determines whether money flows primarily to investors and owners or back toward users, members, public value, community services, affordability, or mission delivery. [3]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public materials do not show ordinary workers holding full binding democratic control over the institution. [4]
  • First Advantage / Sterling operates in an everyday-need category where job loss, illness, rent pressure, family-care obligations, tax compliance, utility dependence, or household instability affects bargaining power. [5]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's product or service can absorb real household, civic, care, housing, energy, or tax-compliance risk, but the record also shows who bears costs when the institution fails or prices rise. [6]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in a market where customers, tenants, patients, taxpayers, utility users, parents, or community members often face switching costs, asymmetric information, or limited choice. [7]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's core service has practical everyday utility, but its integrity depends on pricing, safety, transparency, access, quality, data handling, and accountability. [8]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's scale or category makes its decisions consequential for ordinary U.S. households, patients, tenants, parents, taxpayers, utility customers, or communities. [9]
Loss-Bearing Fidelity
?
Willingness to absorb costs to preserve values, workers, users, and public obligations.
2 / 7

First Advantage / Sterling's product or service can absorb real household, civic, care, housing, energy, or tax-compliance risk, but the record also shows who bears costs when the institution fails or prices rise.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record identifies its ownership form, institutional type, or public/private/nonprofit/cooperative structure in the employment category. [1]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record indicates whether binding control sits with shareholders, executives, members, public officials, nonprofit boards, residents, patients, or customers. [2]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's model determines whether money flows primarily to investors and owners or back toward users, members, public value, community services, affordability, or mission delivery. [3]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public materials do not show ordinary workers holding full binding democratic control over the institution. [4]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in an everyday-need category where job loss, illness, rent pressure, family-care obligations, tax compliance, utility dependence, or household instability affects bargaining power. [5]
  • First Advantage / Sterling's product or service can absorb real household, civic, care, housing, energy, or tax-compliance risk, but the record also shows who bears costs when the institution fails or prices rise. [6]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in a market where customers, tenants, patients, taxpayers, utility users, parents, or community members often face switching costs, asymmetric information, or limited choice. [7]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's core service has practical everyday utility, but its integrity depends on pricing, safety, transparency, access, quality, data handling, and accountability. [8]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's scale or category makes its decisions consequential for ordinary U.S. households, patients, tenants, parents, taxpayers, utility customers, or communities. [9]
Market Conduct
?
Pricing fairness, switching costs, lock-in, and rent extraction.
1 / 5

First Advantage / Sterling operates in a market where customers, tenants, patients, taxpayers, utility users, parents, or community members often face switching costs, asymmetric information, or limited choice.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record identifies its ownership form, institutional type, or public/private/nonprofit/cooperative structure in the employment category. [1]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record indicates whether binding control sits with shareholders, executives, members, public officials, nonprofit boards, residents, patients, or customers. [2]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's model determines whether money flows primarily to investors and owners or back toward users, members, public value, community services, affordability, or mission delivery. [3]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public materials do not show ordinary workers holding full binding democratic control over the institution. [4]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in an everyday-need category where job loss, illness, rent pressure, family-care obligations, tax compliance, utility dependence, or household instability affects bargaining power. [5]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's product or service can absorb real household, civic, care, housing, energy, or tax-compliance risk, but the record also shows who bears costs when the institution fails or prices rise. [6]
  • First Advantage / Sterling operates in a market where customers, tenants, patients, taxpayers, utility users, parents, or community members often face switching costs, asymmetric information, or limited choice. [7]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's core service has practical everyday utility, but its integrity depends on pricing, safety, transparency, access, quality, data handling, and accountability. [8]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's scale or category makes its decisions consequential for ordinary U.S. households, patients, tenants, parents, taxpayers, utility customers, or communities. [9]
Product Integrity
?
Preservation of quality rather than degradation for monetization.
2 / 5

First Advantage / Sterling's core service has practical everyday utility, but its integrity depends on pricing, safety, transparency, access, quality, data handling, and accountability.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record identifies its ownership form, institutional type, or public/private/nonprofit/cooperative structure in the employment category. [1]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record indicates whether binding control sits with shareholders, executives, members, public officials, nonprofit boards, residents, patients, or customers. [2]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's model determines whether money flows primarily to investors and owners or back toward users, members, public value, community services, affordability, or mission delivery. [3]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public materials do not show ordinary workers holding full binding democratic control over the institution. [4]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in an everyday-need category where job loss, illness, rent pressure, family-care obligations, tax compliance, utility dependence, or household instability affects bargaining power. [5]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's product or service can absorb real household, civic, care, housing, energy, or tax-compliance risk, but the record also shows who bears costs when the institution fails or prices rise. [6]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in a market where customers, tenants, patients, taxpayers, utility users, parents, or community members often face switching costs, asymmetric information, or limited choice. [7]
  • First Advantage / Sterling's core service has practical everyday utility, but its integrity depends on pricing, safety, transparency, access, quality, data handling, and accountability. [8]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's scale or category makes its decisions consequential for ordinary U.S. households, patients, tenants, parents, taxpayers, utility customers, or communities. [9]
Scale Integrity
?
Whether growth improves or degrades fairness and accountability.
4 / 5

First Advantage / Sterling's scale or category makes its decisions consequential for ordinary U.S. households, patients, tenants, parents, taxpayers, utility customers, or communities.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record identifies its ownership form, institutional type, or public/private/nonprofit/cooperative structure in the employment category. [1]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public record indicates whether binding control sits with shareholders, executives, members, public officials, nonprofit boards, residents, patients, or customers. [2]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's model determines whether money flows primarily to investors and owners or back toward users, members, public value, community services, affordability, or mission delivery. [3]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's public materials do not show ordinary workers holding full binding democratic control over the institution. [4]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in an everyday-need category where job loss, illness, rent pressure, family-care obligations, tax compliance, utility dependence, or household instability affects bargaining power. [5]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's product or service can absorb real household, civic, care, housing, energy, or tax-compliance risk, but the record also shows who bears costs when the institution fails or prices rise. [6]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling operates in a market where customers, tenants, patients, taxpayers, utility users, parents, or community members often face switching costs, asymmetric information, or limited choice. [7]
  • context First Advantage / Sterling's core service has practical everyday utility, but its integrity depends on pricing, safety, transparency, access, quality, data handling, and accountability. [8]
  • First Advantage / Sterling's scale or category makes its decisions consequential for ordinary U.S. households, patients, tenants, parents, taxpayers, utility customers, or communities. [9]

Penalties
Penalty Applied Why this penalty
Human Harm
?
Severity, scale, culpability, vulnerable targets, willful reoffense, reputation laundering, pattern escalation, and time decay. Range: -20 to 0.
-3

First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Human Harm relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Human Harm relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability. [10]
Policy Capture
?
Private-interest attempts to bend law, regulation, subsidies, taxes, enforcement, trade, labor, safety, competition, environmental, healthcare, housing, surveillance, civil-liberties, or consumer policy against workers, customers, citizens, affected communities, or ecological life. Public-interest advocacy is not penalized merely because it is lobbying. Range: -15 to 0.
-2

First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Policy Capture relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Policy Capture relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability. [11]
Subscription Capture
?
Manipulative recurring-payment, automatic-renewal, cancellation-friction, bundling, trial-conversion, or refund designs that profit from inertia or confusion. Range: -5 to 0.
-1

First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Subscription Capture relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Subscription Capture relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability. [12]
Accountability Opacity
?
Material opacity, reputation laundering, or hidden accountability structures that prevent public accountability. Range: -2 to 0.
-2

First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Accountability Opacity relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Accountability Opacity relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability. [13]
Identity Capture
?
Customer pressure, employee pressure, and pervasive identity saturation. Range: -3 to 0.
-3

First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Identity Capture relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Identity Capture relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability. [14]
Surveillance Capture
?
Invasive surveillance, unreasonably non-optional tracking, facial recognition, biometric identification, or AI behavior scanning of customers, workers, bystanders, or the public. Range: -5 to 0.
-4

First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Surveillance Capture relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Surveillance Capture relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability. [15]
Ideological Disavowal
?
Concealed ideology presented as neutrality, expertise, professional necessity, public-service administration, market inevitability, or non-ideological common sense while exercising power. Range: -3 to 0.
-2

First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Ideological Disavowal relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Coverage-gap batch calibrated across tax filing, utilities, housing, storage, healthcare systems, and childcare/youth institutions.

Linked evidence
  • First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Ideological Disavowal relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability. [16]

Bonus Credits

No bonus credits applied in this version.

Confidence Basis

Confidence Basis

Confidence is computed from the evidence trail and review state, not typed into the profile by hand.

High 80/100

16 verified linked claims 16 direct axis claims 0 disputed claims 16/16 components covered

This confidence label measures the source-backed evidence trail. AI-scaffolded scores remain tentative until human review.

Claim confidence 16/20

16 verified linked claims

Source quality 12/18

Best source per verified claim, weighted by institutional reliability

Direct axis-specific claims 14/18

16 direct claims across 16 active components

Dispute load 12/12

0 disputed claims on this entity

Recency 10/10

Newest accepted timestamp: May 13, 2026

Reviewer status 7/12

Human-reviewed components score higher than AI scaffolding

Component coverage 10/10

16/16 evidence-bearing components have direct support

Evidence State

Evidence State

Profile stateAI draft / human-pending
VerificationUnverified
ConfidenceHigh confidence (AI)
ThoroughnessDeveloped (AI)
Correction routeUse “Challenge this rating” for factual errors, missing counterevidence, source problems, or calculation mistakes.
Company responseCompany representatives can submit source-backed corrections; payment never changes scores or reviewer authority.

Claims and Sources

Claims are the evidence record. Each claim needs a source link, axis category, status, confidence level, and timestamp before it can support a score.

* Tentative scaffolding score. Not human-checked or final.
1First Advantage / Sterling's public record identifies its ownership form, institutional type, or public/private/nonprofit/cooperative structure in the employment category.

Ownership Verified High confidence Human-reviewed

2First Advantage / Sterling's public record indicates whether binding control sits with shareholders, executives, members, public officials, nonprofit boards, residents, patients, or customers.

Governance Verified High confidence Human-reviewed

3First Advantage / Sterling's model determines whether money flows primarily to investors and owners or back toward users, members, public value, community services, affordability, or mission delivery.

Extraction Verified High confidence Human-reviewed

4First Advantage / Sterling's public materials do not show ordinary workers holding full binding democratic control over the institution.

Labor Sovereignty Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

5First Advantage / Sterling operates in an everyday-need category where job loss, illness, rent pressure, family-care obligations, tax compliance, utility dependence, or household instability affects bargaining power.

Solidarity Unemployed Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

6First Advantage / Sterling's product or service can absorb real household, civic, care, housing, energy, or tax-compliance risk, but the record also shows who bears costs when the institution fails or prices rise.

Loss Bearing Fidelity Verified High confidence Human-reviewed

7First Advantage / Sterling operates in a market where customers, tenants, patients, taxpayers, utility users, parents, or community members often face switching costs, asymmetric information, or limited choice.

Market Conduct Verified High confidence Human-reviewed

8First Advantage / Sterling's core service has practical everyday utility, but its integrity depends on pricing, safety, transparency, access, quality, data handling, and accountability.

Product Integrity Verified High confidence Human-reviewed

9First Advantage / Sterling's scale or category makes its decisions consequential for ordinary U.S. households, patients, tenants, parents, taxpayers, utility customers, or communities.

Scale Integrity Verified High confidence Human-reviewed

10First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Human Harm relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Human Harm Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

11First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Policy Capture relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Policy Capture Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

12First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Subscription Capture relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Subscription Capture Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

13First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Accountability Opacity relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Accountability Opacity Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

14First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Identity Capture relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Identity Capture Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

15First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Surveillance Capture relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Surveillance Capture Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

16First Advantage / Sterling's public record makes Ideological Disavowal relevant through its ownership, pricing, safety, lobbying, environmental burden, youth exposure, data practices, lock-in, public mission, or community accountability.

Ideological Disavowal Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

Alternatives

AGOOD56 tentative score Ventures microenterprise and small-business support nonprofit · Washington, Pacific Northwest

Competitors

DEXTRACTIVE26 tentative score Gusto private payroll, benefits, and HR platform for small businesses · same market DEXTRACTIVE12 tentative score ADP public payroll, HR, tax, and workforce-services company · same market DEXTRACTIVE11 tentative score Green Corps environmental organizer training organization · same market DEXTRACTIVE7 tentative score UKG private HR, payroll, and workforce-management software company · same market DEXTRACTIVE6 tentative score Workday public human-capital-management and finance software company · same market DEXTRACTIVE4 tentative score Work for Progress progressive nonprofit recruiting organization · same market FMALIGNANT-2 tentative score Checkr private employment background-screening platform · same market FMALIGNANT-2 tentative score HireRight private-equity-owned employment background-screening company · same market

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