I take it the thumb down is for yourself.
You obviously have not read on how the rating is done.
Rely upon users for reports
Wrong, it doesn't do that. Part of the rating comes from users behavior, not from user reports.
That can not be the only heuristic utilized
It isn't as explained in how the BCU rating is done.
What compounds this issue is the fact that your application itself decides to make changes IE your default search engine.
Wrong again. It doesn't. It only changes to Bing (or another) if the user choses to have it do so.
If you ask users to supply data and that is the only data you use
Users are not asked to supply date and the user data collected is not the only thing that is used.
For someone saying to be a IT Pro for 20+ years, you are sure doing a poor job
Search and research before posting next time please.