In a nutshell yes they are testing, standards, and compliance agencies. They may have different standards depending on the actual listing or product and in other cases they may be very similar.
There are plenty of other "trusted" agencies as well.
Here is the problem. There are boatloads of products that carry such listings that are in NO WAY safe. There are other boatloads of products that carry those listings even though they never passed the testing. They either piggybacked on an existing listing or flat out were never tested and are using the label anyway. This is a HUGE problem with the "global" manufacturing economy.
For example (your a networking guy). I can order 10,000 feet of twisted pair wire. I can order that wire with a cat3 twist configuration and a 50v insulation rating. BUT I can ask that it be labeled Cat6 300gigaherz PLENUM/AERIAL rated at 10,000V UL, CE, MSHA, etc. The China manufacturer could care less. His people at the local customs office could care less and because I am a con man, I could care less.... When the cable fails because it was pushed to it's labeled specs... My overseas holding company will be long gone, as will the trail of middlemen that had no idea they were involved in a scam.
This happens with everything from wire, to electronics components to industrial motors and equipment, heating elements, cordsets, power tools, you name it.... and it is happening with alarming regularity.
The scary part is that these bogus "listed" components are making their way into name brand products from MAJOR manufacturers, as they are buying from the same global market.
Long story short: A far east company basically STOLE an unpublished TYCO formula for capacitor dielectric. They preceded to make millions of electrolytic capacitors using the formula. They sold these capacitors to WORLDWIDE distributors. Because these caps were a penny or so less each than the WIMA, PANASONIC, etc caps. The marketplace gobbled them up.
Within 1 year the caps began to fail because the dielectric dried out (the formula was not correct!) and the power supplies and computer equipment that these knock off caps were used in began to fail. A LARGE PORTION OF IT IN CATASTROPHIC WAYS DUE TO EXPLODING CAPACITORS!
Why give you this specific example? Because, being an IT guy, you may remember the HUGE rash of exploding caps in ATX power supples and on ASUS, ABIT, TYAN, PC CHIPS and a dozen other motherboards a few years back. You may remember hearing about a failed satellites that was only on orbit for a year or less! You may have heard about the US, Australian and NATO forces scrambling to replace circuit boards that may fail during battle or flight! These were ALL due to said capacitors that were made from a stolen and botched TYCO formula. They were sold and labeled as military spec components with the appropriate labeling and documentation, when in fact it was all bogus
You will recognize these as PURPLE electrolytic capacitors that were used on products made in the late 90's and early 2001, 2002.
So yes it is good to see a label, but in this day and age you can not blindly trust it.
PHEW... that was long for such a simple question.
If I can find the article about the WHOLE ordeal I will post a link to it!
