1. Genuine customer experiences
Reviews should describe a real interaction with the company named on the profile. Fabricated, purchased, coordinated, incentivised without disclosure or competitor-submitted reviews are prohibited.
2. Honest and relevant content
Reviews should explain the customer’s experience in a clear and relevant way. A low rating is allowed when it reflects a genuine experience, but deliberately false factual claims, impersonation and misleading alterations are not allowed.
3. Respectful participation
Threats, hateful content, targeted harassment, sexual exploitation, encouragement of violence and abusive attacks on individuals are prohibited. Strong criticism of a service may be expressed without attacking a person’s protected characteristics or personal dignity.
4. Private and confidential information
Users must not publish passwords, security codes, payment-card information, full account numbers, identification documents, private addresses, medical records or confidential business documents. Evidence containing sensitive details should be redacted where possible.
5. Spam and commercial manipulation
Unrelated promotions, repetitive submissions, affiliate links, keyword stuffing, automated posting and organised attempts to inflate or damage a company’s reputation are prohibited.
6. Review reports
Signed-in users may report a published review using an applicable policy reason. Reports should identify the specific concern and provide relevant context. A report does not automatically remove or hide the review.
7. Business review disputes
Authorised business teams may challenge a review on factual, identity, privacy, duplication or policy grounds. Disagreement with criticism, embarrassment or a low rating is not sufficient by itself.
8. Evidence standards
Evidence should be relevant, authentic and lawfully obtained. Trustora may consider receipts, correspondence, transaction references or other supporting records. Evidence is stored privately and should not be displayed publicly unless separately authorised.
9. Fair consideration
Moderators should consider the review, report, dispute, available evidence, account history and applicable policy. Decisions should not favour a business merely because it is large, verified, paying or publicly prominent.
10. Possible review decisions
A review may remain visible, be restored, be placed under review or be hidden. Hidden reviews are excluded from public company profiles and Trustora Score calculations while the underlying record may be retained for audit and appeal purposes.
11. Account enforcement
Depending on severity and history, actions may include a formal warning, temporary review restriction, wider content restriction, account suspension or permanent ban. Serious fraud, threats or coordinated manipulation may justify immediate stronger action.
12. Business conduct
Business representatives must not threaten reviewers, reveal private customer information, submit fake positive reviews, organise mass reporting or offer improper benefits in exchange for removing genuine criticism.
13. Appeals
Users may appeal an active enforcement action where the feature is available. An appeal should explain the alleged error and provide relevant evidence. Filing an appeal does not automatically suspend or reverse the original action.
14. Repeat and coordinated abuse
Trustora may consider patterns across accounts, devices, companies, submissions and security events when investigating repeated or coordinated abuse. Related accounts may be reviewed together where permitted by applicable privacy and legal requirements.
15. Emergency and legal matters
Content involving credible threats, serious fraud, exploitation or urgent safety concerns may be escalated promptly. Trustora may preserve or disclose information when required by a valid legal process or reasonably necessary to protect people from serious harm.
16. Human judgement and automated signals
Technical signals may help prioritise suspicious activity, but final content and enforcement decisions should involve appropriate human judgement. Automated signals should not be treated as conclusive proof by themselves.
17. Transparency and audit history
Moderation actions should be recorded with the case reference, decision, reason, administrator and time. Participants may receive a summary of the result, subject to privacy, security and legal limitations.
18. Policy review
Trust and safety standards should be reviewed as the platform, abuse patterns and legal obligations develop. Material changes should be published with a new policy version.
This document provides operational standards for the Trustora software. It should be reviewed by qualified legal and trust-and-safety professionals before public deployment.