ByLocals Review, Vouch & Community Content Policy

ByLocals Review, Vouch & Community Content Policy

Our own review, 3 October 2026. It is not legal advice.

Last revised: 3 October 2026· Operated by Aceman Software Solutions Ltd

This policy covers vouches, optional tips and reports. It supports honest first-hand local experience and sets out how we meet our duty not to publish fake or paid-for reviews. That duty is in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 and has applied since 6 April 2025. We follow the Competition and Markets Authority’s guidance on it. We keep a written risk assessment and a log of what we check and remove.

1. What a vouch means

A vouch is a lightweight statement: “I have had a genuine first-hand experience with this business and would point a local towards it.” It is not a star rating, proof of safety or a guarantee. ByLocals may use contextual/normalized vouch signals, but never lets a business buy weight or removal.

2. Who may participate

Before vouching, a participant completes a lightweight verification step, normally a single-use magic link to an email address. This confirms control of the contact route, not the person’s name, residence or experience. The public display is pseudonymous unless a later, separately approved feature says otherwise.

Verification can be pending, verified, failed, expired or revoked. A failure/expiry creates no vouch and offers a fresh safe attempt; revocation uses the support/review path. Public recovery responses do not reveal whether an address/account exists or internal abuse signals. Only a current confirmed_email verification plus the complete confirmation below can support submission.

The participant must attest that:

• they are at least 16;
• the vouch reflects their own genuine experience within a reasonable recent period;
• they are not the owner, employee, contractor responsible for promotion, immediate family/household of an owner, or otherwise commercially connected in a way that would compromise independence;
• they have not received or been promised money, a discount, gift, competition entry, preferential treatment or any other benefit for the vouch/tip; and
• their contribution is honest and lawful.

One participant may vouch for a given business organisation only once in any rolling 12-month period, even when it has several locations. Renewal is a fresh attestation; it is not automatic.

A submitted vouch begins pending with zero weight, then may be active (weight one), held/rejected/withdrawn/expired (weight zero). A repeat attempt inside the organisation-wide window is blocked before a vouch is created and shows when the participant may try again. Participants can withdraw an active/held vouch; records are retained only as the legal/integrity schedule permits.

3. What businesses may and may not do

Businesses may neutrally invite all genuine customers to vouch using the standard ByLocals wording or Verified Kit. They must not:

• offer or imply an incentive;
• ask only customers expected to be positive (“review gating”);
• submit or arrange vouches themselves, use staff/connected parties, buy a service that supplies vouches, or create accounts/devices to evade controls;
• pressure a participant, dictate a tip, or make service conditional on a contribution;
• threaten, reward or punish someone because of a vouch, tip, report or non-participation; or
• claim that a vouch is a ByLocals endorsement, certification or verified purchase.

Buying a Verified Kit or any other ByLocals service does not change these rules, moderation, weight, ranking or access to reports.

4. Tips and prohibited content

Tips are optional, short first-hand notes and are pre-moderated before publication. A tip must be relevant and useful. We reject or edit only as permitted below when it contains:

• fabricated, incentivised or non-first-hand claims;
• unlawful, threatening, hateful, harassing, sexually explicit or abusive content;
• personal data, doxxing or allegations about an identifiable person that are unnecessary to the business experience;
• defamatory allegations, accusations of crime, medical/safety claims or other assertions we cannot responsibly publish;
• advertising, links, repetitive text, impersonation, irrelevant campaigning or competitor sabotage;
• secrets, confidential material or content that infringes intellectual-property rights; or
• attempts to manipulate search, awards or other signals.

Where a useful tip can be made publishable through a minor spelling/length or personal-data edit without changing meaning, we may do so and mark it as moderated. We do not rewrite sentiment. Otherwise we reject it and, where possible, explain why.

If someone says a tip is false

If a person says a tip is false or defamatory, we may hide it while we check. Where the Defamation (Operators of Websites) Regulations 2013 apply, we follow them. In short: we pass the complaint to the person who wrote the tip, if we can reach them. We take the tip down if they do not answer in time, if we cannot reach them, or if they agree. We keep the verified email behind each tip, so its author can be identified. We never pass on a complainant’s or an author’s details without their agreement. Because tips are short, if we cannot check a serious complaint, we take the tip down.

5. Detection and reasonable preventive steps

Before launch we document channel-specific risks and test proportionate controls. Signals may include verification/contact reuse, rate and timing patterns, shared device/network or campaign anomalies, unusual location/business concentration, duplicate language, connected-party evidence, selective solicitation and complaint history. A signal prompts review; it is not automatically proof.

We maintain records of policy versions, attestations, moderation outcomes, suspected manipulation, investigations, sanctions, appeals and response times. We review samples of accepted contributions as well as reports, update controls when abuse changes, and preserve the paid/organic firewall.

We do not publicly expose device identifiers, email addresses, fraud signals or detailed detection thresholds. Any device/storage access must follow the Storage Technologies Notice and PECR assessment.

6. Reports, investigations and sanctions

Anyone can report a contribution at bylocals.co.uk/report. Reports should identify the content and reason; contact details are optional unless needed for follow-up.

We acknowledge and triage reports under the published service target, preserve relevant evidence, consider both the report and contributor/business context, and avoid disclosing a reporter’s identity without a lawful reason. Pending review we may temporarily hide content where continued publication creates a meaningful legal, safety or manipulation risk.

Proportionate outcomes include: no action; label/edit; rejection/removal; vouch de-weighting; warning; temporary contribution restriction; invalidation of a manipulated campaign; account/business investigation; or permanent participation ban. A business remains eligible for free listing and correction even if community-feature access is restricted. Serious illegality or threats may be referred to the appropriate authority.

7. Appeals and fairness

The contributor or affected business may appeal within 30 days through the complaints page at bylocals.co.uk/complaints (choose “Something else” and say it is an appeal) and provide relevant evidence. Where practicable, someone not responsible for the first decision reviews it. We provide a concise outcome unless doing so would expose security controls, another person’s rights or a legal restriction.

Appeal state is open, under review, upheld, overturned or withdrawn, and the original decision remains in force during review. Overturning does not silently edit the contribution. A rejected vouch returns to pending with zero weight and must pass the current participant-verification, complete-attestation, organisation-wide uniqueness and integrity checks before activation. A held-vouch or tip overturn uses the relevant ordinary reinstatement/publication transition. Tip moderation remains independent of vouch weight.

ByLocals does not remove truthful content merely because it is inconvenient, nor retain content merely because it is favourable. Paid status has no bearing on an outcome or response time.

8. Parked and separate mechanisms

• Agree/disagree reactions are not approved for launch. They require a new abuse/privacy assessment and policy update.
• Awards votes are separate from vouches. Each award requires published eligibility, voting period, verification, manipulation, tie, withdrawal, complaint and privacy rules. Vouches do not silently become votes.
• Enquiry feedback, transaction outcomes and Local Supporter status do not become vouches unless the participant separately completes the vouch flow and attestation.

9. Transparency and review

We publish the applicable policy with each contribution flow, identify when content was moderated or removed where appropriate, and publish aggregate enforcement information once volume makes it meaningful without exposing individuals. The risk assessment is reviewed at least every six months and on a new city, channel, incentive risk, material complaint pattern or regulatory change.

Privacy information, retention and rights are in the Privacy Notice. Questions: hello@bylocals.co.uk; privacy requests: hello@bylocals.co.uk.

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Version 1.1 · 3 October 2026. We checked this ourselves against UK rules on that date, including the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, the Defamation Act 2013 and the Online Safety Act 2023. It is not legal advice.