SensusPublic Trust Layer

How Sensus works

Sensus is designed to help people compare local service businesses faster and with more confidence. This page explains what we look at, what we publish, and what we do not claim.

What you are looking at

Each business page is a snapshot of what Sensus could confirm at that point in time. It may include owner verification, business details, customer feedback, and recent updates.

What we use as evidence

We use public business information, owner-submitted materials, and customer feedback that can be tied back to a real source.

How we label confidence

Some facts are owner verified. Some are supported by multiple sources. Some are still incomplete. We try to show that difference clearly instead of pretending everything is equally certain.

What stronger evidence looks like

  • Limited: we have only a small amount of reliable information.
  • Moderate: several facts line up across multiple sources.
  • Strong: the business has broad, consistent evidence across key details.

What we do not promise

We do not promise future service quality, guarantee business outcomes, or replace your own due diligence. Sensus is meant to reduce guesswork, not replace judgment.

How pages change over time

Pages change when we get better evidence, when a business verifies information, or when someone submits a correction that is approved.

License evidence bar

Public license pages are grouped by state, then city, then service category, then business. The service category is the normalized service-category field when the record has one. Until that field is present, the category is the license type. If both are absent, the category is unknown and the page is not indexed. This bar covers every service business Sensus publishes, not one trade.

  • The record is a business. An individual licensee is not listed. A personal registration name is not listed.
  • The page does not show a street, postal code, phone, email, person name, or Google Places field.
  • An indexable page has an active license number and status, the issuing source, a link to the official record, a city, and an as-of date taken from the source file.
  • A missing fact is the word unknown. Unknown is not indexed as if it were known.
  • The first published register is Delaware business licenses from the Delaware Department of Finance, Division of Revenue. The official file is https://data.delaware.gov/d/5zy2-grhr.
  • Sunbiz, Florida Department of Health, NMLS, and Google Places are not published.
  • Other state registers stay unpublished until this Delaware path has been checked on the live site.
  • If the register is not loaded on the server, the page says so. Sensus does not invent businesses to fill it.
  • Payment does not change the bar, the license facts, or whether a page is indexed.
  • A license is not a ranking, a review, or a statement that Sensus verified the owner.

Source attribution

These published registers are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution terms. Each one is credited here and on its pages.

  • Milwaukee liquor licenses (mke-liquor): Contains data from the City of Milwaukee, licensed under CC BY (http://www.opendefinition.org/licenses/cc-by).
  • Boston licensing board licenses (bos-board): Contains data from the City of Boston, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • Boston food establishment licenses (bos-food): Contains data from the City of Boston, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • DC basic business licenses (dc-bbl): Contains data from the District of Columbia, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • Baltimore liquor licenses (balt-liquor): Contains data from the City of Baltimore, licensed under CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
  • Iowa insurance producer and adjuster firms (ia-insurance): Contains data from the Iowa Insurance Division, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • Iowa licensed insurance companies (ia-insurer): Contains data from the Iowa Insurance Division, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • Iowa preneed sellers (ia-preneed): Contains data from the Iowa Insurance Division, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • Iowa retail pharmacies (ia-pharmacy): Contains data from the Iowa Insurance Division, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • Iowa assisted living programs (ia-assisted): Contains data from the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The publisher last updated this file on 2025-08-11; that is the as-of date shown.
  • Iowa retail sales permit holders (ia-sales): Contains data from the Iowa Department of Revenue, Tax Research Bureau, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • District of Columbia on-premises alcohol and hotel licenses (dc-abca): Contains data from the District of Columbia Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • Hartford food service establishments (hfd-food): Contains data from the City of Hartford, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).