Dispute and Takedown Policy
Legal
How to contest a report about a business, and the deadlines we hold ourselves to.
DRAFT — NOT LEGALLY REVIEWED. The response deadlines below are the single most important thing for counsel to set, because in several jurisdictions they determine whether a statutory defence is available at all (notably the UK Defamation Act 2013 s.5 operator's defence and the EU Digital Services Act notice-and-action regime).
Effective date: [EFFECTIVE DATE] Disputes contact: [LEGAL CONTACT EMAIL]
Anyone who believes a published report is inaccurate or unfair, including:
No account is required, and there is no fee. You do not need a lawyer to file a dispute.
In the app: open the report and tap "I'm the business owner — dispute this listing".
By email: write to [LEGAL CONTACT EMAIL] including:
You do not need to identify a legal cause of action. Plain description is enough.
When a dispute is filed, the report is immediately marked "Disputed" in the app, before any human review. Users see the contested status while we consider it. We do this because the cost of temporarily flagging a valid report is far lower than the cost of leaving a false one unmarked.
A human moderator — never an automated system — reviews the report, your submission, and any evidence. We may:
We assess whether the report is substantially accurate, whether it is clearly identified as an allegation rather than a finding, and whether it complies with our [Content and Moderation Policy](/v1/legal/content-policy).
| Outcome | What it means |
|---|---|
| Report upheld | We consider it substantially accurate and appropriately labelled. It returns to published status. We tell you why. |
| Report amended | We correct or clarify wording, remove a business name, or reduce it to an area-level warning. |
| Report removed | The report is unpublished and no longer visible. |
| Escalated | Complex cases go to senior review; we tell you it has been escalated and when to expect a decision. |
We give reasons for every decision, in line with the DSA's statement-of-reasons requirement.
| Step | Target |
|---|---|
| Acknowledge receipt | [1–2] business days |
| Decision on a straightforward dispute | [X] business days |
| Decision on a complex or escalated dispute | [Y] business days |
| Removal, once decided | Within [24] hours |
Counsel must set X and Y. The UK s.5 operator's defence depends on acting within the statutory timetable in the Defamation (Operators of Websites) Regulations 2013, and the DSA requires acting "in a timely, diligent, non-arbitrary and objective manner". These placeholders should be replaced with figures that satisfy the strictest market we launch in.
You may request internal review by replying to our decision. A different reviewer, senior to the original decision-maker, will reconsider it.
EU users: under the Digital Services Act you may also refer the decision to a certified out-of-court dispute settlement body, and to your national Digital Services Coordinator. This is in addition to, not instead of, your right to go to court.
Nothing in this policy limits your legal rights, including any right to bring a claim in court in your own jurisdiction.
We may decline to re-review a dispute that repeats a resolved complaint without new evidence. We will always explain why, and this does not affect your legal rights.
Formal legal correspondence should go to [LEGAL CONTACT EMAIL] and [REGISTERED ADDRESS], marked for the attention of [LEGAL CONTACT NAME]. We aim to acknowledge legal notices within [2] business days.
We publish an annual transparency report covering the number of disputes received, outcomes, and median response times, in line with DSA reporting expectations.
Implementation note (not part of the published policy): the app currently records disputes, flags reports automatically, and supports uphold/remove with an audit trail of which admin resolved each one. Statement-of-reasons text, the internal-review escalation step, and the transparency-report export are not yet built and are required before launching in the EU or UK.
