eKomi Communication Rules

I. Evaluation Conditions and Evaluation Rules for transaction-based Feedback

Thank you for taking the time to share your opinion.

Your opinion helps other consumers to get a better idea of what to expect from providers and/or their products and services. Each review submitted – whether positive or negative – will be included in the evaluation statistics of the company in question or of the evaluated products or services, and is part of the eKomi trust elements, such as certification page, widget and seal, provided that it complies with the evaluation rules mentioned hereafter. By submitting your review, you accept to comply with these rules.

In principal, your opinion must be communicated in a polite and constructive manner and must be based on facts. We may take legal action against of untrue assertions.

Provider and products evaluations will be displayed and calculated separately. It is not permitted to combine the two.

Companies must not in any way attempt to influence the opinions of the evaluators when leaving a review.

1. Conditions / Guidelines for the Submission of Reviews

a. A review is comprised of a star rating and a written comment. It can be complemented by images and videos, as far as eKomi provides this functionality. In the conditions hereinafter, the term “review” comprises the star rating, the written comment and possibly related images and/or video material.

b. The prerequisite for the submission of a reviews the conclusion of a contract (made a transaction) between the reviewer and the provider for obtaining products or providing services; this contract entitles you to submit an eKomi evaluation. If these requirements are met and you have not received an evaluation link, you can request it from eKomi by proving that you have concluded a contract with the provider as mentioned above.

c. An evaluation can be submitted within six months of receiving the evaluation link; after which the review link will no longer be valid.

d. Only a person who has had a verifiable experience with the provider may give a review..

e. There is no legal entitlement for submitting or publishing an evaluation.

2. Granting of Rights

a. By submitting a review, you are granting eKomi the absolute (non-exclusive) transferable and sub-licensable right to copy, distribute, edit (according to the legal requirements and the regulation of the Communication Rules and publicly reproduce (including making the evaluation publicly accessible) the evaluation (see clause 1.a) free of charge.

b. eKomi is entitled to integrate reviews its own websites and to grant third parties, specifically the merchants in question and cooperation partners who are linked to the eKomi reviews (e.g. Google), the right to reproduce, distribute and publicly display the evaluation online and offline, in particular also for advertising purposes.

3. Inadmissible Contents for Review Comments

The following review content is inadmissible:

  • Criminal and otherwise illegal content, in particular insults, disparagement, unlawful threats, defamatory criticism, allegations of untrue facts, contents that are harmful to minors, content that glorifies violence, discrimination, racist content, etc.
  • Content that may or appear likely to infringe the copyrights, trademark rights, other exclusive rights or personal rights of third parties
  • Statements regarding the therapeutic effect and effectiveness of pharmaceutical products and devices, medical applications or procedures, therapies, etc.
  • Explicit information on prices or other costs (e.g. shipping costs)
  • Personal data (in particular names, addresses, IP addresses, customer IDs, order IDs, bank or credit card data, insurance limits, age, dates of birth) as well as the following company-related data: names of companies, brands, telecommunications data (telephone/fax number, e-mail addresses)
  • Reproduction of individual communication (e.g. excerpts of a mail communication)
  • (Hyper-) links to external content or scripts
  • Content without any informative value (e.g. senseless sequences of numbers, sequences of letters, symbols)
  • Comments which exclusively refer to other reviews
  • Statements on products made within a merchant review
  • Statements on merchants made within a a product review
  • Direct or indirect references to competitors or their products, of the or references the manufacturer of the evaluated product; general references without mentioning the concrete providers or the products are admissible
  • Reviews which exclusively refer to other reviews, other merchants or other products than the ones in question.

4. Inadmissible Reviews

The following reviews are inadmissible:

  • Reviews in which the star rating and the comment text are contradictory (e.g. 1 star rating and a consistently positive comment)
  • Reviews that are justified by circumstances that are not apparently related to the performance of the evaluated company or to the characteristics of the evaluated product (i.e. a merchant is given a poor review because the product does not meet the expectations of the evaluator. In this case a negative review should be left related to the product, not to the Merchant.
  • Product reviews which were submitted in the scope of a Merchant review and vice versa. eKomi is allowed to shift them into the correct category
  • Reviews in which star ratings and /or the review comment are attributed to circumstances outside the scope of responsibility of the provider (e.g. delays in delivery due to postal strike) or which were reasonably detectable for the evaluator before conclusion of the contract (e.g. longer delivery times were indicated on the product page)

5. Transmission of Image and Video Material

a. Clause 3 also applies to submitted image and video material. The contents mentioned in clause 3 are inadmissible for image and video material.

b. Image and video material may only be submitted to eKomi if and insofar as:

  • The individual submitting it has all rights, in particular copyrights, necessary for the reproduction, distribution and public reproduction of the image or video material and its contents (e.g. texts, photos, music, etc. reproduced therein) and it is free of third-party rights. The individual must be in possession of the rights and grant them to eKomi in accordance with clause 2 and;
  • All persons displayed by this material have given their express consent to the content being publicly displayed on the internet.

6. eKomi’s Handling of Reviews

a. eKomi will assess all evaluations submitted (both positive and negative) regarding inadmissible contents prior to publishing them.

b. eKomi will usually delete inadmissible review content or obscure them, i.e. by replacing them with asterisks (***), while retaining the star rating and the other contents. The entire review will be deleted if this is appropriate and/or necessary taking into consideration the circumstances of each individual case, in particular if a negative review is recognizably based on statements which are proven false or which are to be treated as untrue.

c. eKomi may completely or partially delete reviews if:

  • eKomi or the merchant are obliged to do so by legal title or administrative order;
  • The merchant or the evaluator have undertaken, within the framework of a serious statement of injunction towards a third party, to remove or have removed the contents of the evaluation comments and/or star ratings;
  • eKomi – after having considered all case circumstances – deems the review likely to violate the rights of the company and/or the rights of a third party, because the comment contains false or otherwise unlawful statements;
  • eKomi has reason to believe that the review is based on abusive or manipulative acts or on acts of the client or of third parties intended to cause damage;
  • The reasons behind the submission of a review relates to circumstances that the company can apparently not justify;
  • There are other circumstances in which intervention is deemed necessary by eKomi.

d. An Image and / or video is submitted which contains inadmissible content. In no case will eKomi ever retouch, shorten, etc. Such content to meet the requirements.

e. Product reviews which are submitted within the scope of a merchant reviews or vice versa may be shifted by eKomi into the correct evaluation category.

f. eKomi may grant the right to re-submit a review to those who submit inadmissible reviews.

7. Client Dialogue

a. If you have voluntarily inserted your E-Mail address upon review submission, the evaluated company or the company manufacturing the evaluated product is allowed to contact you in order to discuss the review.

b. Participation in the client dialogue is voluntary. The dialogue can be stopped anytime without giving reasons.

II. Evaluation Conditions and Rules for non-transaction-based Feedback and Feedback generated by eKomi in its role as a Service Provider for a Client

1. The conditions stipulated under I. “Evaluation Conditions and Rules for transaction-based Feedback” apply accordingly, with the following exceptions:

a) Opinions do not have to be transaction-based and the conclusion of a contract for a product or service between you and the merchant is therefore not a pre-requisite..

b) The method in which and the purpose for the evaluation inquiry are carried out according to the specifications made by the client. eKomi acts as technical service provider.

c) Although the opinions are reviewed by eKomi regarding possible inadmissibility and treated accordingly, they are not included into the statistics of transaction-based reviews and they are not part of the eKomi trust elements; instead they are clearly identified and presented as non-transaction-based eKomi opinions.

d) The form of publication of non-transaction-based reviews shall be in accordance with the instructions of the client.

2. The client is responsible for the compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and for the adherence to the data protection regulations. Moreover, the company itself is responsible for the following:

a. The way in which the end-users are informed about the possibility to submit star ratings and reviews, as well as for obtaining the necessary declarations of consent from the end-users.

b. Checking the legal admissibility of advertisements (including their method) featuring the star ratings and comments given for the company and/or its products; special emphasis should be put on aspects of competition and advertising law (e.g. according to the pharmaceutical advertising law); and

c. Verifying the legal conditions regarding competition, data protection and other laws in relation to obtaining the necessary declarations of consent from the end-users.

d. EKOMI CANNOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR DAMAGES RESULTING FROM A VIOLATION OF THE AFOREMENTIONED OBLIGATIONS.

III. General Communication Rules for all Users of eKomi Services

The following rules apply to all communication within the services provided by eKomi:

Basically, all communication must be polite, constructive and factual. Legal action can be taken against untrue allegations.

In case of repeated violation of the eKomi communication rules, eKomi may disable access to eKomi services. This does not relieve the respective users from their contractual obligations towards eKomi.

The following contents are inadmissible and may be deleted by eKomi:

  • Criminal and otherwise illegal content, in particular insults, disparagement, unlawful threats, defamatory criticism, allegations of untrue facts, contents that are harmful to minors, content that glorifies violence, discrimination, racist content, etc.
  • Content that may or appear likely to infringe the copyrights, trademark rights, other exclusive rights or personal rights of third parties
  • Statements regarding the therapeutic effect and effectiveness of pharmaceutical products and devices, medical applications or procedures, therapies, etc.
  • Explicit information on prices or other costs (e.g. shipping costs)
  • Personal data (in particular names, addresses, IP addresses, customer IDs, order IDs, bank or credit card data, insurance limits, age, dates of birth) as well as the following company-related data: names of companies, brands, telecommunications data (telephone/fax number, e-mail addresses)
  • Reproduction of individual communication (e.g. excerpts of a mail communication)
  • (Hyper-) links to external content or scripts
  • Content without any informative value (e.g. senseless sequences of numbers, sequences of letters, symbols)
  • Comments which exclusively refer to other reviews
  • Statements on products made within a merchant review
  • Statements on merchants made within a a product review
  • Direct or indirect references to competitors or their products, of the or references the manufacturer of the evaluated product; general references without mentioning the concrete providers or the products are admissible
  • Reviews which exclusively refer to other reviews, other merchants or other products than the ones in question.