Reviews Policy:
Last Updated: January 3, 2021
KoshOnline is committed to being a key player for consumers and businesses to connect and grow in South Africa. In the modern online world, reviews play a massive role in generating buyers confidence. Therefore, we employ a comprehensive commenting and review system and we are dedicated to ensuring that consumers can trust existing comments, and post new ones in a meaningful way.
Though, at KoshOnline, our Advertisers/Listing Owners have the right and are equipped to moderate their own comments and reviews. This global decision is in par with our business model and constitutes our Business pages, which acts as one page-web page. Using our platform you agree and understand that listing owners can moderate comments made on their page. This is all achieved through simple processes and clear policies as outlined below. We ask both reviewers and business owners to share our values and abide by these principles and guidelines and the Reviews Policy.
REVIEWS CONTENT GUIDELINES:
– Posting a review:
Our review service offers consumers the opportunity to rate and review their genuine, first hand, experiences with the businesses which they use. Specifically:
- A consumer can only review a business with whom they have had a direct, first hand, experience. Not based on what they heard from friends or relatives.
- For clarity, our definition of an experience is where a business has been actively engaged as part of a buying process or delivery of the service. A consumer can only review a business to the extent of their direct experience, e.g. a consumer who obtained a quote from a business but did not accept the service can review their experience with obtaining the quote but cannot review the delivery or ongoing support for the service.
- In addition, you may not write a review about a business:
- That you or any family member have any financial interest in;
- That you are employed by or otherwise work for;
- That is a competitor to a business that you or any family member have any financial interest in, are employed by or otherwise work for;
- In exchange for payment; or
- Where your interaction occurred more than 12 months previous to submitting the review.
- Consumers can also provide a rating (1-5 stars) of a business.
- Our advice for consumers is that if they have had a bad experience with a business they can try to explain why in their review. Genuine negative feedback is fine, but constructive criticism is much more useful to the business and potential customers than an angry rant.
- The personal details of users will never be shared with the subject of their review, or 3rd parties, without obtaining permission, unless we are required to share them related to a court or government order.
- We encourage free speech and defend everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view. But, we do not permit abusive or offensive behavior towards businesses or other users. This includes (but is not limited to) the use of profanities; threats; prejudiced comments; hate speech; and/ or, sexually explicit language. All user generated content material posted on KoshOnline.co.za, must comply with both the guidance in this Reviews Policy and User Agreement.
- We respect our users’ privacy and do our utmost to protect it; see our Privacy Policy. We expect users to join us in protecting people’s privacy and for reviews to be unbiased and objective. Mentioning the celebrity owner of a bar/restaurant is fine, but detailing personal information such as full names, email addresses, mailing addresses; phone numbers; as well as bank and card details for, individual members of staff, or any other individual, is strictly prohibited. If a review does contain this type of information it may be removed.
- Anything posted should be a reviewer’s own, unique work. This includes not uploading images/videos, or using content in videos to which someone else owns the copyright, such as music tracks, snippets of copyrighted programs or videos made by other users and unattributed quotes. Content may be removed, without notice, if we receive a complaint from the copyright owner.
- All reviewers should be aware that the content they submit becomes visible to anyone who visits the KoshOnline.co.za website, so they need to check that what they are posting meets our KoshOnline.co.za User Agreement.
– Responding to a review:
- Businesses will proactively be informed whenever any new review is posted on their business listing.
- Anyone, who has registered for a KoshOnline.co.za account, can respond to a posted review on their business.
- When the business owner responds to a review they will be highlighted as the business owner to consumers via the ‘Response’ icon.
- Any comments should be constructive and written in a non-biased way. They also need to adhere to policies associated with ‘Posting a Review’, other than the need to provide a star rating.
- All comments will be published in real-time and will be visible to all.
-Reporting a review:
- We do not edit, pre-vet or review any third party material before it is published on the KoshOnline.co.za website. We actively encourage any party to report any review, that they believe to contravene our policies by using the ‘report review’ link on the specific review.
- In the event of a review being reported, we will assess the review against our policy. If the review is not in breach of the policy but is believed by the reporter to be posted by an individual who is not recognized as someone who has had an experience with the business, we will contact the reviewer within 2 working days, via email, and provide 3 working days for the provision of further information to support a decision being made around the veracity of the review. In the absence of a response, the review will be withdrawn as unsubstantiated.
- Where a review is reported as defamatory the person reporting the review will be advised of the outcome within 20 working days of the email being sent to the reviewer.
- If the veracity of a reported review is substantiated it will remain in place, irrespective of KoshOnline.co.za relationship with the reviewed business. Substantiation will be based on KoshOnline.co.za being ‘satisfied’ that the review meets our policies. The only exception to this is if the reviewed business decides to suppress the review functionality from their listing altogether. In this case, all review data both positive and negative is removed and the business can no longer receive any reviews.
– Requesting a review:
- We actively encourage all businesses to proactively manage their online reputation. This includes the ability to request reviews from their own customers (not friends or family).
- Offline requests can also be made, with consumers needing to be directed to: KoshOnline.co.za reviews.
- Merchants can find additional support for managing reviews by logging into KoshOnline.co.za and visiting the ‘Reviews’ section.
-How reviews are accessed and reflected in a business’s listing:
- We will ascribe an overall reviews star rating for a business, using an algorithm that looks at volumes of reviews by star rating.
- Star ratings will feature against a business’s listing, and within their business profile.
- Specific reviews will be accessible via a business’s profile page.
- In some cases KoshOnline.co.za reviews are also published in 3rd party search results such as Google.
-Get in touch:
- If you need help with a KoshOnline.co.za Listing or information on any of our services please visit our Help and Support Centre.
REVIEWS POLICY:
- Notice and Take-Down System: We do not monitor, censor or moderate reviews. We provide a passive conduit only for users to post reviews about businesses featured on our website.
- Reviewers may not write a review that:
- They have been paid to write by the business or a competitor of the business;
- Does not describe their personal and direct interaction with the business;
- Is not factually correct;
- Violates laws regarding defamation, harassment, discrimination, racial vilification, sedition, blasphemy, bullying or contempt;
- Is abusive, offensive, indecent, pornographic or obscene;
- Advocates illegal activity or discusses illegal activities with the intent to commit them;
- Is intentionally or unintentionally false, misleading, deceptive, inaccurate, incorrect or unreliable;
- Infringes intellectual property rights including copyright of any third party;
- Is inappropriate, off topic, repetitive or vexatious; or
- Compromises the privacy or data protection rights of any person.
- For Business Owners: Business owners may not do any of the following which could damage your online reputation or be interpreted as misleading consumers:
- Pay for reviews of your own or a competitor’s business;
- Review your own or a competitor’s business; or
- Try to have negative reviews removed leaving only the positive reviews (astroturfing).