Guidelines for Businesses

A user (“User”) is someone who:

• has purchased a product or service from the Company,
• has placed an order with the Company, or
• can otherwise document his/her use of the Company’s service, including via correspondence or other interaction with the Company.

(These are collectively referred to as “Service Experiences” in the following.)

When the Company sends invitations to its Users inviting them to review the Company or a product on uBlist, the Company must observe the following rules. The rules apply regardless of whether review invitations are sent via the Company’s own system or through our review invitation services:

1.1 The Company must ensure that Users are invited equally and identically to submit reviews about their experience with the Company.

1.2 The Company may not selectively invite Users to submit reviews; as a general rule, the Company must invite all or none of its Users. If the Company wishes to deviate from the principle of all or none, the Company must ensure that the Users who are invited to submit reviews are selected in an objective, unbiased manner. For example, this could mean inviting every third User.

1.3 The language in the review invitation must be neutral, unbiased and independent of whether the User is expected to have had a positive or negative experience with the Company. It must not include any attempts to (i) influence the User to review the Company in a positive or negative manner, (ii) attract specific types of Users, or (iii) otherwise artificially achieve an outcome desired by the Company.

1.4 If the Company is offering or has offered an incentive to Users to write reviews, this information must be shown on their company profile page on uBlist. The Company must inform uBlist about the use of incentives by sending an email to [email protected]. Incentives include the Company offering Users a gift, reward, discount or advantage for writing a review about the Company or a product on our Website. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Companies may not offer an incentive to Users to write positive reviews or to remove negative reviews or in any other way offer incentives in a biased way (for example offering free shipping with the next purchase).

The Company has the option of replying to reviews on uBlist. If the Company replies to reviews, the Company warrants in every context that the replies:

• are not unlawful, offensive, deceptive, misleading, fraudulent, threatening, abusive, harassing, libelous, defamatory, tortious, obscene, pornographic or profane,
• do not have a sexist, political or racially discriminating character,
• do not violate other people’s rights, including any intellectual property rights and privacy rights,
• do not in any way breach any applicable local, national or international laws or regulations,
• do not have a disloyal or unlawful purpose and/or content (or promote unlawful purposes), and
• are not technically harmful (including without limitation containing computer viruses, logic bombs, Trojan horses, worms, harmful components, corrupted data or other malicious software, harmful data or conduct).

If the Company reports a review on uBlist for contravening our User Guidelines, it must provide an explanation (also called a “Public Reporting Reason”). More information about the Public Reporting Reason can be found here.

The above rules about replies to reviews on uBlist also apply to the Company’s use of the Public Reporting Reason.

If we receive notice or otherwise become aware that the replies or the Public Reporting Reasons violate these Guidelines, we may delete the replies or the Public Reporting Reasons without notice, and may inform the affected parties and/or the authorities of the violation – depending on the nature of the violation. Our right to delete is not conditional upon providing an explanation, although we will strive to inform the Company about any deletions and the reason for them.

The Company has the option of using uBlist’s reference number function. This function enables the Company to request Users to input a reference number when writing a review of the Company, but Users are not required to do so. The Company can enable this feature in their business account. More information about the reference number function can be found here.

If the Company establishes that invalid order numbers are being submitted with reviews, the Company must inform us without undue delay by reporting the affected reviews.

Reviews submitted independently of our review invitation service can be subjected to reference number verification. This function can be enabled if a Company experiences severe documented abuse on uBlist, which causes significant damage to the Company’s reputation.

Reference number verification can only be enabled by our Compliance Team and can only be set up by emailing a request to us at [email protected], along with evidence of the abuse. Reference number verification does not retroactively verify reviews posted prior to its activation. More information about reference number verification can be found here.

We reserve the right to turn off the reference number verification function in cases of suspected abuse, and/or if we determine that there is no longer a need for it.

If the Company changes the way in which it numbers its orders, the Company must inform us without undue delay by sending an email to [email protected].

The Company will be able to see whether it is entitled to use uBlist logos, graphics and trademarks (“uBlist Designs”) in the administration module on uBlist.

Our Trademark Guidelines, Brand Style Guide, Integration Guidelines and Marketing Guidelines detail by whom, where and how uBlist Designs and reviews may be used.

If the Company is entitled to display the TrustScore, category ranking, uBlist Stars and other uBlist data in its marketing materials, on its website, etc., and does so, the Company must ensure that it does not display these in a misleading, biased or otherwise deceptive way. The Company must make sure that the displayed TrustScore, category ranking, uBlist Stars and other uBlist data are always accurate and reflect the Company’s actual TrustScore, ranking and the awarded number of uBlist Stars on uBlist. The Company’s responsibility to accurately display uBlist information extends to its use of widgets and similar services.

If the Company is entitled to display reviews, the Company agrees that it must remove and delete any displayed reviews if so, requested by the Users who wrote the reviews in question, or by us e.g. if the reviews violate these Guidelines.

In the administration module on uBlist, the Company may have the ability to include information about the Company and add the Company’s logos, trademarks and designs. This will be shown on the Company’s profile page on uBlist. The Company must not include information that can be misleading, deceptive, defamatory or otherwise in violation of applicable laws. In addition, the Company warrants that – if the Company includes logos, trademarks and designs – it has all rights to do so and that these logos, designs and trademarks do not violate any third party rights.

If we receive notice or otherwise become aware of any violation of the obligations set out above, we may edit, delete or remove content on the Company’s profile page without notice. Our right to edit, delete or remove content is not conditional upon providing an explanation, although we will strive to inform the Company about any editing, deletion or removal and the reason therefore.

Companies with more than one physical location can set up one domain with multiple locations on uBlist and collect local reviews for each location (“Location Reviews”). The Company must inform uBlist in case a location is closed down or in case of address changes. uBlist reserves the right to open, close or edit a location if we determine that the location doesn’t exist or has been closed down, moved or in other ways violate these Guidelines and/or applicable laws or regulations or contain language that is inappropriate for an online review community.

It may be possible for the Company to use uBlist’s invitation services, including invitation templates. The Company must not misuse these services. Examples of misuse are outlined in section 1 of these Guidelines.

We consider such behaviour a material breach of the agreement between the Company and us and will entitle us to suspend access to the invitation services or terminate the agreement.

uBlist’s purpose is to provide an online review community where Users can freely share their Service Experiences with the Company and thereby provide an informative view of the Company’s service and products.

Trust is crucial to us, and we do not under any circumstances accept fabricated reviews. Fabricated reviews are those that do not reflect a genuine Service Experience, because, for example, they are created by or on behalf of the Company itself.

We consider the direct and indirect creation of fabricated reviews a material breach of the agreement between the Company and us. It is irrelevant how the fabricated reviews are created, including whether they are created by employees of the Company or by external consultants.

We use specially developed software to detect fabricated reviews. Reviews that we deem fabricated, fake or similar will be deleted, moved or highlighted, and we are entitled to publish information about this in connection with the Company’s profile on uBlist.

The Company is not permitted to invite or otherwise encourage its employees, former employees, owners or directors, or their family members to write reviews about the Company.

The Company may not provide equipment for Users to review the Company. Our specially developed software for detecting fabricated reviews will detect and remove reviews that originate from the same IP address.

We can grant permission to the Company to collect reviews on its own premises – but never through the Company’s equipment – if the Company contacts us prior to collection by email at [email protected] and:

• Informs us about how review collection will take place
• Provides us with the Company’s IP addresses and locations, and
• Guarantees that these Guidelines will be respected, including the requirements set out in section 1.

However, we reserve the right to reject such requests and to withdraw our permission at any time, without prior notice or justification.

We host reviews as user-generated content. The removal of reviews is exclusively a matter between the Users and us, and our User Guidelines regulate if and when we remove reviews. For the avoidance of doubt, we do not remove reviews, when for example:

• The Company and the User disagree on the course of events. It is practically impossible to prove who is right, and in these cases, we suggest that the Company replies to the review so that other users can see the Company’s version of what happened,
• The User’s review and the number of awarded stars seem inconsistent, e.g. if the User awarded the Company only one star, but wrote a very positive review of the Company, or
• The Company thinks the review is “unfair”, e.g. because the dissatisfaction is a result of a mistake made by a supplier. Whether a User feels satisfied or dissatisfied is exclusively the User’s subjective opinion, and whether or not the User’s dissatisfaction is appropriate is not a matter for us to decide. Such issues are left to be resolved between the involved parties, i.e. the Company and the User.

It is possible for the Company to report reviews that the Company believes violate our User Guidelines. The Company must not misuse this reporting functionality.

Examples of misuse include, but are not limited to:

• Carrying out unfounded or incorrect reporting of many or all negative reviews,
• Carrying out unfounded or incorrect notification of competitors’ positive reviews, or
• Reporting the same review multiple times when that review has already been assessed in accordance with our internal quality process, unless exceptional circumstances apply.
• Reporting a Location Review for being on the wrong location when this is not the case.

We consider such behaviour a material breach of the agreement between the Company and us.

Companies may not threaten, abuse or blackmail Users. Threats include making unjustified claims for damages in order to have specific reviews (typically negative) removed.

Further, we also do not tolerate threats against uBlist employees. Under no circumstances will we accept such behaviour.

We consider threatening or abusive behaviour a material breach of the agreement between the Company and us, which can lead to us immediately blocking the Company’s account and filing a report with the relevant authorities.

We may at any time, without notice and without prejudice, suspend or block the Company’s access to their business account or/and specific features in the business account if we believe or suspect that the Company is carrying out behaviour that is inappropriate or in violation of the Guidelines or applicable laws or regulations. When the Company’s business account or/and specific features are suspended or blocked, the Company will not have access to services which require the Company’s registration and/or login, such as reporting or responding to reviews.

We reserve the right to enforce these Guidelines if we observe violations of them or of applicable laws or regulations. The same applies if we observe behaviour that we believe or suspect to be inappropriate.