Acceptable Use Policy

Use Plauditly to collect real praise from real customers, approve the genuine ones, hide the spam, and embed them on a site you operate. Don't use it to fabricate, incentivize-for-sentiment, or deceptively curate reviews. Don't use it to attack anyone else's product. Don't try to break it.

The US Federal Trade Commission's Final Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials took effect October 21, 2024. It applies to anyone — including you, the Plauditly customer — who solicits, displays, or otherwise uses customer testimonials in commerce. Civil penalties go up to $51,744 per violation, per testimonial.

You may NOT use Plauditly to:

• Fabricate testimonials. Don't write fake quotes attributed to real or invented people. Don't generate testimonials with AI and pass them off as customer feedback. Don't use stock-photo "customers".
• Buy or incentivize sentiment. If you offer a gift card, discount, free product, or other consideration in exchange for a testimonial, the incentive must NOT be conditioned on the testimonial being positive. Telling a customer "leave a 5-star review and we'll send you $10" is a violation.
• Disclose material connections. If an incentive (paid, gifted, employee, family) is involved, the connection must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously alongside the testimonial. Use the "material connection" note in your widget config when applicable.
• Suppress negative reviews deceptively. You may legitimately hide spam, off-topic submissions, harassment, or content that violates this AUP. You may NOT hide negative-but-genuine reviews while continuing to display positive ones in a way that creates a deceptive overall impression. The "hide" action in your dashboard is for moderation, not curation-by-sentiment.
• Use insider reviews without disclosure. Testimonials from your own employees, officers, family members, or anyone with a material connection to your business must disclose the relationship.
• Republish testimonials of products you don't sell. Don't collect or republish testimonials about a competitor's product, or about any product or organization you don't represent.
• Misrepresent the source. Don't attribute a testimonial to someone who didn't write it. Don't materially edit a testimonial in a way that changes its meaning while presenting it as the customer's own words.

Reference: FTC Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule — Q&A.

Similar prohibitions apply globally. If you sell to customers in:

• EU/EEA — Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC and the Omnibus Directive 2019/2161 (since May 2022). Fake or paid-for reviews without disclosure are explicitly listed as misleading commercial practices.
• UK — Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act) made the prohibition explicit; CMA enforces.
• Australia — ACCC enforces under the Australian Consumer Law (Sch 2 of the CCA).
• Canada — Competition Act §52 (false or misleading representations).

We expect compliance with whichever rules apply to your business. Plauditly's role is to provide the tooling; ultimate compliance responsibility is yours.

You may NOT:

• Use Plauditly for any unlawful purpose, or to harass, defame, threaten, or discriminate against any person or group.
• Submit content that's obscene, hateful, infringes third-party rights (IP, privacy, publicity), or violates export control / sanctions law.
• Attempt to scrape, crawl, or bulk-extract data beyond the documented public API rate limits.
• Probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the service except through our coordinated disclosure process at /legal/security.
• Interfere with other customers' use of the service.
• Use automated means to create accounts or submit testimonials.
• Transmit malware, exploit code, or anything intended to damage the service or other users.
• Resell, white-label, or sublicense the service without our written agreement.
• Use Plauditly's brand, name, or marks to suggest endorsement or partnership without permission.

The hosted collection form requires an explicit consent checkbox. When an author asks you to remove their testimonial:

• Honor the request promptly — hide the testimonial in your dashboard the same business day.
• If asked, permanently delete the row (your dashboard's delete action removes it from your project and from public API responses).
• Don't republish the same quote later from a different source as a workaround.

If you receive a contact from an author you can't identify (e.g. via Plauditly support), we will route the message to your account email so you can respond.

We may remove specific testimonials, suspend your access, or terminate your account for violations of this AUP. For severe violations (FTC-implicating, illegal, threatens our infrastructure or other users), suspension can be immediate without notice. For curable issues, we'll give you reasonable opportunity to fix it.

We may report severe violations to relevant authorities where legally required to do so.

To report a testimonial or account that violates this AUP: abuse@plauditly.app. Include the project slug or widget ID and the specific concern. For copyright complaints, use the DMCA process at /legal/dmca instead.