DineSafe AU β Restaurant Food Safety Fines & Hygiene Ratings
Aggregate Australia's fragmented food-safety penalty registers and Brisbane's Eat Safe star ratings into per-venue and per-suburb pages β the only dedicated competitor has been dead since 2017, and current penalty notices are invisible in Google.
Quick Stats
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Generated | 2026-08-10 by Claude Fable 5 |
| Est. Pages | ~9,500 (only pages passing content depth threshold: 8,010 Brisbane venues + ~190 Brisbane suburbs + ~750 rolling NSW offence venues + 128 NSW LGA hubs + state/weekly hubs) |
| Build Time | 3 weeks |
| Competition | π’ Low (only dedicated aggregator, Got Gastro, dead since 2017) |
| YMYL? | Yes-adjacent β public-health topic; mitigated because every claim cites official .gov.au registers verbatim (β5 applied to score) |
| AI Overview Risk | π’ LowβMedium |
| Content Depth | 10+ data points/page (best case) / 5 (worst indexed case β conditional generation) |
| Data Sources | 4 combined (NSW Food Authority registers, Brisbane Eat Safe API, VIC/WA/SA/ACT convictions registers, ABS suburb data) |
| Data Access | Free API (Brisbane, CC BY 4.0) + Gov register scraping (NSW, no blocking) |
| Revenue Model | Display ads + food-safety course affiliates |
| Data Cost | Free |
| Est. Monthly Revenue | $800 (at ~50K visits) |
| Weighted Score | 51/75 (56 β 5 YMYL modifier) |
1. The Opportunity
Problem Statement
Australians have no way to check a restaurant's food-safety record. NSW publishes a name-and-shame register of penalty notices (758 live records as of 28 Jul 2026, ~950 new per year) and Brisbane star-rates all 8,010 of its food businesses, but this data is scattered across clunky government pages with no suburb browsing, no venue history, and no cross-state view. A restaurant can rack up four penalty notices in one day (verified: Maya Da Dhaba, Redfern, May 2026) and remain completely invisible in Google search results for its own name.
Why Now?
- The only dedicated aggregator ever built (Got Gastro / gotgastroagain.com) is dead β HTTP 522, GitHub repo last pushed October 2017. The concept was proven, then abandoned.
- NSW issued 1,287 penalty notices between Jul 2024 and Nov 2025 (57.7% in Sydney) β a steady weekly content stream.
- Brisbane City Council now publishes its full Eat Safe dataset as a CC BY 4.0 open-data API updated daily (verified modified 2026-08-09) β a clean legal backbone that didn't exist in Got Gastro's era.
- Name-and-shame stories are a recurring high-engagement news genre (SMH, news.com.au, hospitality trade press run them constantly) β the site can news-jack the weekly register updates.
Search Demand Evidence
- "restaurant fined food safety Sydney" β only official register pages and episodic news stories rank; no aggregator.
- Entity probe "Maya Da Dhaba Redfern penalty" β the venue's four current 2026 penalty notices are invisible in the SERP (only a 2019-era prosecution story ranks). Clear per-venue gap.
- "scores on doors sydney" β fragmented council pages; the City of Sydney's own participating-venues XLSX was last updated Dec 2023.
- Brisbane: "eat safe rating [venue]" queries are served only by the council's search-only widget β no browsable suburb pages exist.
- Demand is honest-modest: long-tail entity + suburb curiosity + news spikes, not head-term volume.
AI Overview Analysis
Entity queries ("[restaurant] food safety record") need fresh, dated, per-venue register data that changes weekly and legally expires after 12 months β AI Overviews can't hold this and are conservative about naming businesses in negative contexts. Definitional head terms ("what is scores on doors") will be absorbed by AI Overviews β the site should not target them. Main SERP risk is actually the .gov.au registers' own authority, beaten via suburb rollups, venue histories, and cross-state views the registers don't offer.
2. Data Sources
| Source | Data Available | Access Method | Rate Limits | Reliability | Verified? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NSW Register of Penalty Notices | 758 live notices: trade name, suburb, council, address, offence code + description, circumstances, penalty $, dates | HTML scrape (50 rows/page Γ 15 pages + per-notice detail pages) | None encountered | High | β Tested (full scrape test) |
| Brisbane Eat Safe permits | 8,010 venues: business name, address, suburb, phone, eat_safe_rating (0β5), permit category | Opendatasoft JSON API + CSV, CC BY 4.0, updated daily | Generous | High | β Tested (API) |
| NSW Register of Prosecutions | ~15 prosecutions: convicted party, decision, court | HTML scrape | None | Medium (messy cells) | β Tested |
| VIC Register of Convictions | 15 convictions w/ court, fine, offence detail | HTML scrape | None | Medium (site just migrated to Safe Food Victoria β URL churn) | β Tested |
| WA Offenders List | ~40 convictions (details in PDFs) | HTML + PDF parse | None | Medium | β Tested |
| SA Food Prosecution Register | Currently 1 record | HTML (needs browser UA β WebFetch 403s) | None | Low (near-empty) | β Tested |
| ACT Food Offences Register | 0 current records | HTML | None | Low | β Tested (empty) |
| ABS suburb demographics | Population, dwellings per suburb (context enrichment) | Free API, SDMX-JSON | Generous | High | Reference-verified Jan 2026 |
Data Acquisition Notes
- NSW: scrape list pages + per-notice detail pages (
/offences/penalty-notices/{id});q/ssearch params exist; weekly (/week) and monthly pages make incremental updates trivial. No CSV/API exists. - Brisbane:
https://data.brisbane.qld.gov.au/api/explore/v2.1/catalog/datasets/food-safety-permits/recordsβ standard Opendatasoft API; companionfood-safety-complaintsdataset also available. - Test results: NSW register returned full record detail (see sample below); Brisbane API returned rated venues (McDonalds Central Station = 3 stars, Bounce Brisbane = 5 stars).
- Records expire by statute: NSW notices ~1 year, NSW prosecutions 2 years, VIC 12 months, WA 24 months, SA/ACT 2 years. The pipeline MUST sunset records in lockstep and mirror the NSW corrections feed.
- data.gov.au CKAN search confirmed no per-venue inspection datasets exist beyond the above (911 hits, all aggregate counts or import inspections). Note: CKAN API path is now
https://data.gov.au/data/api/3/action/package_search(old/api/3/path 404s).
Enrichment Source Map (from Phase 4h)
PRIMARY SOURCE: NSW penalty register + Brisbane Eat Safe API β 8-10 fields per venue
βββ ENRICHMENT 1: VIC/WA/SA/ACT convictions registers β 5-7 fields (join: business name + address)
βββ ENRICHMENT 2: ABS demographics β 3 fields per suburb (join: suburb/postcode)
βββ ENRICHMENT 3: Cross-register repeat-offender linking β offence history count (join: entity name/ABN)
βββ TOTAL: 10-13 unique data points per venue page; suburb pages aggregate 10+ venues each
Why these sources prevent thin pages: A venue page combines identity, rating, every offence with dollar amounts and dated circumstances, plus repeat-offender history β none of which appears together anywhere, including on the source registers themselves (which show one notice at a time with no venue rollup).
Data Coverage Gaps
- QLD outside Brisbane, TAS, NT: no public data at all. VIC/WA/SA/ACT: convictions only (15/40/1/0 records) β token coverage.
- Meaningful page-generating coverage β 36% of the AU population (NSW 31% + Brisbane 5%). Plan: launch as NSW + Brisbane site explicitly; add states only if registers materialise (ACT/SA registers exist but are empty β monitor quarterly). Do NOT generate suburb pages outside NSW/Brisbane.
3. Page Architecture
URL Patterns & Scale
| Pattern | Template | Example URL | Est. Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Venue (Brisbane) | /venue/[slug]/ | /venue/bounce-brisbane-george-st/ | 8,010 |
| Venue (NSW offenders) | /venue/[slug]/ | /venue/maya-da-dhaba-redfern/ | ~750 rolling |
| Suburb (Brisbane) | /eat-safe/[suburb]/ | /eat-safe/fortitude-valley/ | ~190 |
| LGA hub (NSW) | /fines/[council]/ | /fines/city-of-sydney/ | 128 |
| State hub + registers | /[state]-food-safety/ | /nsw-food-safety/ | 8 |
| Weekly update | /new-fines/[year]-week-[n]/ | /new-fines/2026-week-32/ | 52/year |
| Rankings | /worst/[city]-[year]/ | /worst/sydney-2026/ | ~20 |
Page Template Structure
/venue/maya-da-dhaba-redfern/
βββ H1: Maya Da Dhaba β Food Safety Record (Redfern, NSW)
βββ Hero: current status badge, total penalties, $ total, last offence date
βββ Section 1: Offence table (date, offence, penalty $, status, source link)
βββ Section 2: What the offences mean (offence-code explainers)
βββ Section 3: Other venues in Redfern / this LGA (internal links)
βββ Sidebar: ad unit + "report an error" (links to official register correction process)
βββ Footer: breadcrumbs, disclaimer ("penalty notice is not an admission of liability"), register citation + retrieval date
Sample Page with REAL Data (from Content Depth Gate 4g)
URL: /venue/chinatown-noodle-restaurant-chatswood/
Title: Chinatown Noodle Restaurant Chatswood β Food Safety Penalty Record | DineSafe AU
H1: Chinatown Noodle Restaurant, Chatswood: Food Safety Record
Data points displayed (all REAL, pulled from the NSW register during research):
| # | Data Point | Value (REAL) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Trade name | Chinatown Noodle Restaurant Chatswood | NSW penalty register |
| 2 | Address | Shop 20/427-441 Victoria Ave, Chatswood 2067 | NSW register detail page |
| 3 | Council | Willoughby | NSW register |
| 4 | Offence date | 20 May 2026 | NSW register |
| 5 | Offence | Fail to display potentially hazardous food under temperature control β previous warnings given (code 11339) | NSW register |
| 6 | Penalty | $1,980.00 | NSW register |
| 7 | Party served | Jiahe Trading Australia Pty Ltd | NSW register |
| 8 | Notices on record | 2 current notices | NSW register (entity rollup) |
| 9 | Published / status | 21 Jul 2026, current (expires ~Jul 2027) | NSW register |
| 10 | Suburb context | X food-safety notices in Willoughby LGA last 12 months | Computed from register |
| 11 | Suburb population | Chatswood β 24,913 | ABS |
Unique narrative content (~200+ words): Auto-generated but data-driven β e.g. "Chinatown Noodle Restaurant in Chatswood received a $1,980 penalty notice on 20 May 2026 for failing to keep potentially hazardous food under temperature control, an offence the NSW Food Authority notes came after previous warnings. It is one of two current notices against operator Jiahe Trading Australia Pty Ltd, and one of [N] current notices in the Willoughby council areaβ¦" plus offence-code explainer paragraphs (what temperature control means, typical causes) drawn from a hand-written library keyed to the ~50 distinct offence codes.
Interactive elements: - Sortable suburb/LGA league table (venues Γ penalties Γ $ totals) - "Check a venue" search box across all registers
Internal Links: - Same-LGA venues: 5-10 links per page - Suburb β LGA β state breadcrumb chain; weekly-update pages link every new venue
Worst-Case Page (Sparse Entity)
URL: /eat-safe/karana-downs/ (outer-Brisbane suburb, few venues)
| # | Data Point | Value (REAL pattern) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rated venues | Full list of permitted venues (even 3-5 in small suburbs) | Brisbane API |
| 2 | Star ratings | Each venue's 0-5 rating | Brisbane API |
| 3 | Category mix | Permit categories (cafΓ©, takeaway, mobile) | Brisbane API |
| 4 | Suburb average | Mean star rating vs Brisbane-wide 3.8 | Computed |
| 5 | 5-star share | % of venues rated 5 | Computed |
| 6 | Nearby suburbs | Adjacent suburb ratings | Computed |
Thin page strategy: Conditional generation. Brisbane suburbs always pass (every venue is rated, so even clean/small suburbs have full data tables). Outside Brisbane: venue pages ONLY for venues with register records; suburb pages ONLY where β₯1 current record exists, otherwise the LGA hub is the terminal page (all 128 NSW LGAs have historical data). No VIC/WA/SA/ACT suburb pages at all β those states get one state hub page each listing their handful of convictions.
4. Competitor Analysis
Top 5 Competitors
| # | Competitor | Domain | Monthly Traffic | DR | Indexed Pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Got Gastro (dead) | gotgastroagain.com | ~0 (HTTP 522) | n/a | 0 |
| 2 | NSW Food Authority | foodauthority.nsw.gov.au | High (gov authority) | 70+ (gov) | Register pages only |
| 3 | Brisbane CC Eat Safe search | brisbane.qld.gov.au | Medium (gov) | 80+ (gov) | Search widget, no browse pages |
| 4 | Hospitality trade press | hospitalitydirectory.com.au etc. | Episodic spikes | 40-60 | Story-by-story |
| 5 | AI-content blogs | accio.com et al. | Low (unverified) | Low | Thin summaries |
Traffic estimated via: SERP observation + SimilarWeb lookups + direct fetch (Got Gastro dead).
Detailed Competitor Breakdown
Got Gastro
- URL: gotgastroagain.com
- What they did well: Proved the aggregator concept (NSW, VIC, WA, SA, ACT coverage).
- Where they fail: Site is down (522); scrapers ran on the defunct morph.io; GitHub last push Oct 2017.
- Your advantage: The niche is literally abandoned. Brisbane's CC-BY API didn't exist in their era.
NSW Food Authority register (the real incumbent)
- URL: foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/offences
- What they do well: Authoritative, weekly-updated, ranks #1 for name-and-shame head terms.
- Where they fail: No suburb/LGA browse pages, no venue rollup (a 4-notice venue shows as 4 disconnected rows), records vanish after 12 months with no context, clunky 15-page pagination.
- Your advantage: Venue-centric pages with offence history, suburb league tables, cross-register views β all things the register structurally can't do.
Brisbane Eat Safe search
- What they do well: Universal coverage (every permit rated), daily-fresh open data.
- Where they fail: Search-only widget β zero browsable/indexable suburb or venue pages; no penalty context.
- Your advantage: 8,200+ indexable pages the council will never build.
Gap Analysis Summary
| Gap Type | What's Missing | Your Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Data | Venue-level history + cross-state view | Entity resolution across registers, offence rollups |
| Coverage | Browsable suburb/LGA pages | 190 Brisbane suburb + 128 NSW LGA hubs |
| UX | Register pagination hell | Search + sortable league tables |
| Features | Weekly "new fines" digest | Auto-generated weekly pages + email digest |
5. Your Unique Positioning
The Angle
The consumer-friendly front-end for Australia's food-safety enforcement data: check any Sydney/NSW venue's penalty history and any Brisbane venue's hygiene star rating in one place, browse suburb league tables, and see this week's new fines β with every record cited to, and expiring with, the official government registers.
Competitive Moat
Weak-to-moderate: the scrapers are replicable, but the compounding assets are entity resolution across registers (repeat-offender histories), the accumulated weekly-digest archive, and news-jacking authority (journalists citing the site's league tables = backlinks). First-mover in a niche whose only player died eight years ago.
Positioning Statement
For diners and local-news readers in NSW and Brisbane who want to know a venue's food-safety record, DineSafe AU is the hygiene-record aggregator that shows penalty histories, star ratings and suburb rankings in one place, unlike the official registers which show one disconnected notice at a time and delete them after a year.
6. Monetization Strategy
| Channel | How It Works | Revenue/Unit | Est. Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Display ads | AdSense β Mediavine Journey at 1K sessions | $8β25 AUD RPM blended | $600 |
| Food handler course affiliates | AIFS/CFT/EOT certificates ($33β$179) β programs UNVERIFIED, direct partnerships likely needed | ~10-15% est. | $150 |
| B2B side door | Pest control / food-safety consultant leads; data feed for hospitality insurers | Speculative | $50 |
Revenue Assumptions
- Traffic: ~50K visits/month at month 12 (news-spike-driven, long-tail entity base)
- RPM: $15 AUD blended display
- Note: some ad networks are cautious about "shaming" content adjacency β verify with Mediavine before committing (flagged UNVERIFIED in research).
Affiliate/Partner Opportunities
- AIFS β no public affiliate program found; approach directly
- Food-safety consultants/auditors β direct lead-gen deals per NSW LGA
Licensing & Regulatory Check
- No licence required for republishing public register data with attribution.
- Brisbane data: CC BY 4.0 β attribute and go. SA Health: CC BY 4.0 site licence. NSW/VIC/WA register HTML: Crown copyright with no explicit bulk-reuse licence β legal review recommended before launch; registers are published under statutory authority (NSW Food Act 2003 ss 133Aβ133F).
- Affiliate disclosure required on monetized pages (ACL).
7. Technical Implementation
Recommended Stack
- Framework: Astro (static) β ~10K pages builds in minutes; island components for search + sortable tables
- Database: SQLite (register scrapes + Brisbane API sync + entity resolution layer)
- Hosting: Cloudflare Pages (free tier)
- Est. Monthly Cost: $0β5/month
Key Technical Decisions
- Static vs Dynamic: SSG rebuilt daily (Brisbane API is daily; NSW weekly) β cron-triggered CI build.
- Data refresh: Daily Brisbane sync; weekly NSW scrape via
/weekpage (18-row incremental, tested); monthly full reconcile + expiry sweep (delete/archive-noindex records the registers removed β legally required behaviour). - Search/filtering: Client-side index (Pagefind) β 10K pages is comfortably within range.
API/Data Integration
1. Daily: GET Brisbane Opendatasoft API (paginated) β upsert venues + ratings
2. Weekly: scrape NSW /offences/penalty-notices/week β fetch new detail pages β upsert
3. Weekly: diff NSW corrections page β apply corrections/removals
4. Monthly: scrape VIC/WA/SA/ACT registers (tiny) β upsert
5. Entity resolution: match on (normalised trade name + address); manual review queue for fuzzy matches
6. Expiry sweep: any record no longer on its source register β mark expired β page shows "no current notices" or 410s
7. Astro build β Cloudflare Pages deploy
Indexing Strategy
- Sitemaps: split venues-brisbane / venues-nsw / suburbs / hubs; weekly pages in a news sitemap
- Internal linking: LGA/suburb hubs β venues; weekly digests β new venues; breadcrumbs state β LGA β suburb β venue
- Crawl budget: prioritise hubs + venues with current records; noindex expired-venue pages after the statutory window
8. Launch Checklist
Week 1: Foundation
- [ ] Register domain, set up Astro + Cloudflare Pages
- [ ] Build NSW register scraper (list + detail + weekly + corrections pages)
- [ ] Build Brisbane Opendatasoft sync
- [ ] Legal review: republication approach, disclaimer wording, expiry policy
Week 2: Scale
- [ ] Entity resolution layer (venue rollups, repeat-offender flags)
- [ ] Generate all venue + suburb + LGA pages; offence-code explainer library (~50 codes)
- [ ] Schema markup (LocalBusiness + Dataset), sitemaps, GSC submission
Week 3: Polish & Launch
- [ ] Weekly digest automation (page + email)
- [ ] Ads + affiliate placements; "report an error" flow mirroring official correction process
- [ ] Pitch launch data story ("Sydney's most-fined suburbs 2026") to hospitality press for launch links
9. Risks & Mitigations
| Risk | Likelihood | Impact | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Defamation claim from stale/incorrect record | Medium | High | Strict expiry sync with source registers; "alleged / not admission of liability" wording; correction flow; never archive expired notices publicly |
| NSW blocks scraping or restructures site | Medium | High | Low-volume weekly scrape; VIC site just migrated (URL churn precedent) β monitor with schema tests; Brisbane API is the stable backbone |
| Thin national coverage disappoints users | High | Medium | Position explicitly as NSW + Brisbane; add states only when registers fill |
| Google favours .gov.au for head terms | High | Medium | Target venue/suburb long-tail + weekly news content, not head terms |
Data Source Risks
- Registers legally purge records (NSW ~1yr) β the tempting "permanent archive" moat is legally radioactive; do not build it.
- Backup: Brisbane API mirrored on data.qld.gov.au.
Competitive Risks
- Barrier to copy is low; moat is freshness discipline + press relationships. A revived Got Gastro-style open-source clone is possible β ship fast, own the news cycle.
Google Algorithm Risks
- Helpful Content: venue pages carry real offence data + explainers β passes "genuinely useful". Do not generate clean-venue pages outside Brisbane.
- AI Overview displacement: avoided by targeting entity/suburb data queries.
Thin Content Risk Assessment
| Metric | This Site | Safe Threshold | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data points per page (best case) | 11 | β₯ 8 | β |
| Data points per page (worst indexed case) | 6 | β₯ 5 | β (conditional generation) |
| Unique words per page (avg) | 250 | β₯ 200 | β |
| Data sources combined | 4 | β₯ 2 | β |
| Pages below threshold (est. %) | ~0% (below-threshold pages are never generated) | < 20% | β |
| Thin page strategy | Conditional generation + LGA aggregation | Must have one | β |
10. Legal & Compliance (AU-specific)
| Area | Requirement | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Defamation | Truth + fair-report defences strongest while records are live and verbatim | Verbatim republication, source citation + retrieval date on every record, statutory expiry honoured |
| ACCC / ACL | Must not mislead about current hygiene status | "Alleged" wording; penalty β admission of liability disclaimer; show record status |
| Privacy | Registers name individuals (sole traders) | Republish only what the register publishes; remove when source removes |
| Copyright | Brisbane CC BY 4.0 β ; NSW/VIC/WA Crown copyright, no explicit bulk licence | Attribute everything; legal review pre-launch; facts themselves aren't copyrightable |
| Affiliate disclosure | Required | Site-wide disclosure component |
Domain Name Suggestions (with availability check)
| Domain | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| dinesafe.com.au | Likely Available | Brandable; "DineSafe" is the proven Toronto model name |
| kitchenscore.com.au | Likely Available | Works if ratings expand nationally |
| cleanplates.com.au | Likely Available | Consumer-friendly, positive framing |
| foodfines.com.au | Likely Available | Exact-intent for the penalty angle |
| safeplates.com.au | Likely Available | Neutral alternative |
| hygienecheck.com.au | Likely Available | Generic but descriptive |
| scoresondoors.com.au | Likely Available | Matches NSW program name (check trademark before use) |
| foodsafescores.com.au | Likely Available | Fallback |
Availability checked via DNS (NS/SOA) on 2026-08-10. Confirm at registrar before purchasing.
11. Post-Launch Strategy (Months 2-12)
Content Maintenance
- Refresh cadence: Brisbane daily, NSW weekly, other states monthly; expiry sweep weekly
- Stale detection: any venue whose last record expired β auto-downgrade page to "no current notices" state
- New pages: ~18/week from NSW register flow + 52 weekly digest pages/year
Monitoring
- GSC weekly (watch for gov-register cannibalisation); CWV monthly; track 50 seed keywords ("[suburb] restaurant fines", "eat safe rating [venue]")
Expansion Playbook
- Adjacent niches: mobile food van permits, council "Scores on Doors" partnerships, NZ registers
- Content layer: monthly analysis posts ("Which Sydney LGA fines the most?") β natural press bait
- Link building: quarterly data reports pitched to food/hospitality journalists (register data has proven news appetite)
12. Success Metrics
| Timeframe | Traffic Goal | Revenue Goal | Key Milestone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Month 3 | 8K visits | $80 | 80% of pages indexed; first press citation |
| Month 6 | 25K visits | $350 | Mediavine Journey accepted; weekly digest habit formed |
| Month 12 | 50K visits | $800 | Rank top 3 for 60% of tracked venue/suburb terms |
Leading Indicators
- Pages indexed (target: 85%+)
- Venue-name queries where site outranks the register row (target: 50+)
- Press backlinks from data stories (target: 5+)
Sources & References
- NSW Register of Penalty Notices β primary NSW data (tested, full scrape)
- NSW Register of Prosecutions β prosecutions data (tested)
- Brisbane food safety permits dataset β 8,010 venues, CC BY 4.0, daily (API tested)
- VIC Register of Convictions β VIC data (tested)
- WA Offenders List β WA data (tested)
- SA Food Prosecution Register β SA data (tested)
- ACT Food Offences Register β ACT register (tested, empty)
- Got Gastro GitHub β dead competitor evidence (last push Oct 2017)
- City of Sydney Scores on Doors β stale council data example
- FoodLegal on name-and-shame registers β legal considerations
- UK Food Hygiene Ratings β proven overseas model
- Hospitality Directory fines coverage β news demand evidence