Review Policy

Reviews are about the business and the service. They may not use politics, religion, sect, conflicts between countries, or anyone's origin as a reason to praise or avoid a business. That is the one line, and it is applied the same way to every listing, every reviewer, and every community on the site.

Everything else about the service stays, including harsh criticism. A directory that removes negative reviews is worthless to the people who use it, and we do not run one.

A review comes down only if it:

• breaks the one rule above;
• is not about a real experience with the business (spam, a copy of another review, a review of a different business);
• was written by the owner, an employee, or a relative of the owner without saying so;
• was paid for, or written in exchange for anything, whether the business or anyone else offered it;
• contains someone's private information (a phone number, a home address, a health detail, a full name of a private person);
• threatens or harasses a person, or is unlawful.

A review never comes down because a business pays us, partners with us, is a founding member, asks nicely, or asks loudly. We do not sell removal and we do not remove for relationships.

We never change the words of a review, not a spelling, not a sentence. A review is published or removed, whole. We never write reviews ourselves and we never ask for reviews in a way that filters for happy customers. Owners may not offer discounts, gifts or anything else for a review, and may not ask only satisfied customers to write one. Before a review appears, an automated check looks for profanity, abusive language and personal data; a review it flags waits for a person who publishes it or removes it, whole.

Anyone with an account who has dealt with the business. One review per person per business; you can update or delete your own review at any time. The form asks you to confirm that you are not the owner, an employee, or a relative of the owner. If you are one of those and still want to post, say so in the review and it stays, labeled.

If a listing receives five or more reviews in a day, new reviews on it are held for up to 24 hours while we check them against this policy, then published or removed whole. This protects businesses from coordinated attacks; it is a rate limit, not a reading, and it is never applied because an owner asked.

Every claimed listing can reply to any review, once per review, at no charge, on any plan. Replies follow the same one rule. An owner who believes a review breaks this policy can report it from the listing; we look at every report within 48 hours and answer either way.

Reports are checked against this page and nothing else. The person checking does not know or care whether the business is a paying customer. If a review is removed, the reviewer is told which line of this policy applied. If a report is declined, the owner is told the same.

Businesses cannot contract their customers out of honest reviews (Consumer Review Fairness Act). Fake reviews, undisclosed insider reviews, and suppressing negative reviews are unlawful for businesses and for us (FTC rule on consumer reviews, 16 CFR Part 465). We host reviews written by users and are not their author; a review's opinions are the reviewer's.