Review Policy
Effective date: 6 November 2026
1. Genuine experience Reviews and ratings must reflect an actual relevant experience with the professional, seller, product or service being reviewed. Describe what happened, distinguish fact from opinion and avoid unsupported accusations. A verified-order label may be used only where the platform has matched the review to the relevant transaction. It does not certify every statement or the product’s quality.
2. Prohibited manipulation Do not review your own business as an independent customer, create multiple identities, buy or sell favourable reviews, coordinate rating attacks, or ask staff/relatives to conceal a relationship. Do not condition a refund, warranty response, benefit or complaint resolution on changing a review. Incentivised feedback must be transparently disclosed and must not require a positive rating. Where a platform or legal rule prohibits an incentive, disclosure does not cure it.
3. Content standards Keep feedback relevant, useful and respectful. Do not publish personal addresses, phone numbers, identity records, confidential quotations or private plans. Threats, harassment, unlawful discrimination, spam and infringement are prohibited. A strongly worded negative opinion is not by itself abusive. A commercial partner cannot buy removal of criticism, and Lighthouse must not suppress negative reviews solely to improve conversion.
4. Moderation and replies Lighthouse may check eligibility, seek proportionate supporting evidence, remove prohibited material or label a disputed relationship. We do not edit a reviewer’s meaning to favour a business. Where practical, give the reviewer the reason and opportunity to correct a removable issue. The business may reply with relevant facts without doxxing, intimidation or promotional spam. A dispute about quality is not automatically grounds to remove the review.
5. Ratings and display [CONFIRM production rating formula, weighting, minimum counts and treatment of removed reviews.] Display the number and basis of ratings accurately. Sponsored position is distinct from organic rating. Do not describe an unpublished or selectively filtered subset as all customer feedback.
Correct identified display/calculation errors. Remove the contribution of a fraudulent review from the aggregate where appropriate and preserve necessary audit evidence.
6. Appeals and deletion A reviewer or reviewed party can report a problem or request human review through the moderation/grievance process. Provide the review locator, reason and supporting evidence. A complaint does not guarantee removal. When an account is deleted, associated review content is handled under the Account Deletion and Privacy Policies and applicable law. Do not promise both permanent deletion and indefinite identifiable publication.
Publication check Implement review eligibility, conflict disclosure, reporting, response and appeal controls. Keep paid promotion and review moderation operationally separate.
7. Eligibility and evidence of experience A review should identify the relevant product, seller, professional or platform service and be based on the reviewer’s actual experience. A verified-purchase label means the stated transaction link was checked; it does not certify that every opinion is objectively true. A professional review may concern consultation or completed work and must identify that context. We may seek proportionate evidence where authenticity is disputed. Avoid publishing invoices, addresses, payment details or third-party personal data as proof. Lack of a platform order is not by itself proof that an off-platform professional experience is fabricated.
8. Prohibited manipulation and conflicts Do not buy reviews, create synthetic customer personas, copy another person’s experience, use AI to invent a transaction, organise competitor attacks or threaten a business with false criticism to obtain money. Employees, owners, agents, relatives and commercially connected persons must disclose material relationships and must not pose as independent customers. Do not offer a benefit conditioned on a positive rating, selectively solicit only satisfied customers in a misleading way, or suppress negative feedback by intimidation. Any permitted incentive for an honest review must be disclosed and must not depend on its sentiment. Lighthouse may prohibit an incentive programme even if it is lawful where it undermines trust.
9. Moderation and business responses A negative opinion, lower rating or unresolved dispute is not sufficient reason for removal. Assess the specific alleged violation: fabrication, personal data, threats, unlawful content, irrelevant advertising or another stated rule. A business may submit a factual response without revealing confidential customer information.
If only part of a review violates a rule, consider proportionate redaction where it preserves meaning. Do not rewrite the rating or convert criticism into praise. Explain a removal or restriction and give the available review route, subject to safety and legal constraints.
10. Historical reviews, transfers and aggregation Retain the original experience period and distinguish a later edit from a new experience. Do not present an old review as a recent endorsement. A business transfer, new owner, new branch or substantially different product must not inherit a misleading aggregate score; disclose the scope or separate the records. Do not duplicate one review across unrelated products or branches. If a legitimate same-product variant grouping is used, make the scope understandable. Imported reviews require rights, provenance and clear labelling; the platform must not describe them as verified Lighthouse transactions without that evidence. Explain how displayed scores are calculated, whether excluded reviews affect the average, and how sponsored positions differ from ratings. Do not claim that every review is verified unless the process substantiates that statement.
11. AI summaries and global standards A summary of reviews must reflect the underlying balance, preserve material qualifications and provide access to the relevant reviews. It must not invent a consensus, hide recurring safety complaints or create testimonial quotations. Removal or correction of a source review must propagate to summaries where relevant. Apply destination rules on fake reviews, endorsements and consumer transparency, including applicable US federal requirements and UK/EU consumer rules when those markets are served. Contract clauses must not unlawfully prevent honest consumer reviews or charge a penalty for them.
12. Reporting and remedies A complaint should identify the review, disputed statement, relationship and supporting evidence. We can restrict proven abuse, remove misleading verification labels, restore wrongly removed content and address repeated manipulation. A commercial partner has no automatic veto over truthful reviews.
13. Separating experience types Reviews should identify the experience they concern: an enquiry, consultation, purchase, delivery, installation or completed professional engagement. A verified purchase label must reflect an actual matched transaction and must not imply that every factual assertion has been independently verified. A person may have a genuine service experience without purchasing a product; that distinction should be visible. A product rating must not be silently merged with a seller's service rating or a professional's design rating. If aggregate scores combine categories, the presentation must explain that method and avoid implying a level of evidence that does not exist.
14. Invitations and incentives Review invitations must not be restricted to customers known to be satisfied while dissatisfied customers are routed to a private form to suppress public criticism. Employees and agencies must not draft a positive review for a customer to post as independent feedback. Any permitted incentive must be disclosed and must not depend on a favourable rating. Refunds, warranty service and delivery of an existing order must not be conditioned on a positive review or withdrawal of criticism. A business may request a factual correction, but may not purchase undisclosed deletion.
15. Evidence and privacy When a review's authenticity is challenged, Lighthouse may request proportionate evidence such as an order reference or redacted correspondence. Do not demand publication of an invoice, phone number, residential address or private contract in the review itself. Evidence supplied for verification should remain restricted to the relevant process. A reviewer should distinguish personal experience from assumptions about another person's motives or criminal conduct. Lighthouse may redact unnecessary personal details or unlawful material while retaining separable lawful criticism. A business's disagreement with an opinion does not by itself establish defamation or manipulation.
16. Response, amendment and dispute The reviewed business may provide a factual response addressing the experience without disclosing private customer information. A response must not threaten, harass or expose the reviewer. If the dispute is resolved, the reviewer may update their account of events; a business must not falsely mark a matter resolved on the user's behalf. Material edits should not make an old review appear to describe a new transaction. Where appropriate, distinguish the original review and later update. A moderation appeal should consider the actual content, evidence and policy basis rather than the reviewer's or business's commercial value.
17. Scores, ordering and historical changes Lighthouse should disclose material scoring practices actually used, including whether recent reviews receive greater weight or whether a minimum evidence threshold affects display. Paid promotion must not increase the underlying rating. Removal of a review must not be used selectively to engineer a desired score. Reviews must not automatically transfer to a new owner, branch, product model or substantially different service. Historic reviews may remain relevant if their context is clear. An archive should not imply that a closed branch continues trading.
18. AI summaries and moderation errors An AI summary must fairly reflect the underlying eligible reviews, avoid invented claims and link back to sufficient context where the interface supports it. It must not identify a reviewer as fraudulent solely because an automated tool flags unusual language.
When a moderation mistake affects a score or summary, correct the relevant downstream display. A reinstated review should regain the treatment appropriate to the published rules. Lighthouse may retain restricted evidence of manipulation without continuing public display of removed personal or unlawful content.
19. Conflicts, imported reviews and platform ratings Do not submit an apparently independent customer review of your own business or use an employee, close associate or competing business to disguise a material conflict. A disclosed professional reference is not automatically eligible for a customer-rating score. Imported testimonials must retain their actual source, date, permission and experience type. They must not be presented as a Lighthouse-verified purchase without evidence. Multiple submissions concerning one experience must not artificially multiply its rating weight. Lighthouse app-store ratings are separate from supplier reviews. Do not condition access, discounts, verification or support on an app-store rating, and do not direct only satisfied users toward the store while suppressing other feedback.