Verified Reviews Transparency Charter
This Transparency Charter describes how reviews are controlled at each stage — collection, moderation and publication — of the TrustedPulse Verified Reviews process. It is designed to comply with the requirements of the NF ISO 20488 standard on online consumer reviews (certification in progress) and forms part of the Terms of Use.
1. Collection process
TrustedPulse acts as a trusted third party. At the point of collection, TrustedPulse undertakes not to select consumers according to their purchase types or frequency: every consumer known to have purchased or used the rated product or service is invited, without discrimination.
- TrustedPulse is a closed platform: a review can only be submitted through a single-use Invitation cryptographically linked to a verifiable transaction. Invitations expire 90 days after issuance.
- The consumer has 90 days from receipt of the Invitation to submit their review, and may amend it within 90 days of writing it. Beyond that period, they may only request its withdrawal.
- By default, no reward (discount, gift or commercial advantage) is offered in exchange for a review. Reviews collected under clearly announced incentive programmes are labelled “incentivised review”, in accordance with the EU Omnibus Directive and French Decree No. 2022-1 of 3 January 2022. The reward, where any exists, never depends on the content or rating of the review.
- Every review is linked to a contactable consumer: TrustedPulse holds in its database the evidence needed to identify the reviewer and attest to their act of consumption.
2. Moderation process
Moderation is a pre-publication process that guarantees the compliance of collected content. It combines:
- automated AI analysis (detection of unlawful content, spam and duplicates);
- human review for ambiguous or reported cases;
- a consistency check between the star rating and the written content (contradiction detection);
- an anti-fraud scoring system (score of 0–100) applied to every submission.
The same moderation rules and timeframes apply to all reviews, whether positive or negative. TrustedPulse may reject a review that breaches this Charter or the Terms of Use — in particular where it contains prohibited content listed in Article 5.2 of the Terms, is unrelated to a genuine experience, or is identified as fraudulent or as an attempt to distort a business’s rating.
The rated business can never delete or edit a review itself. It may only report a review it considers non-compliant; the decision rests exclusively with the TrustedPulse moderation team.
The author of a rejected review is informed of the reason within 5 business days and may contest the decision by writing to [email protected].
3. Publication process
- TrustedPulse publishes ratings and comments strictly identical to what their authors wrote, without altering their meaning or content. TrustedPulse cannot correct spelling, hide part of a review or change a rating.
- The displayed average rating is calculated on all published reviews, positive and negative, without exclusion.
- Reviews are displayed in reverse chronological order by default (most recent first).
- Each review displays its submission date and the “TrustedPulse Verified Review” badge.
- Businesses may reply publicly to reviews through their Back Office; the reply is displayed beneath the review concerned (right of reply). Replies must remain polite and professional and must not contain personal data.
- TrustedPulse cannot be paid to delete, alter or hide a review.
4. Reporting and abusive authors
Any internet user may report a review they consider unlawful or inappropriate, using the reporting feature or by writing to [email protected]. Reported content is examined under an adversarial procedure: the author is contacted, may provide evidence of their experience, and is informed of the outcome. Content that is manifestly illegal may be temporarily hidden during the investigation.
Where an author is identified as having submitted one or more reviews recognised as unlawful, fraudulent or intended to distort a business’s rating, TrustedPulse will withdraw that person’s ability to submit reviews and delete the reviews concerned.
5. Updates
This Charter may be updated to reflect changes in the moderation process or in applicable regulations. The version and date shown at the top of this page identify the current version.
Questions about this document: [email protected] · Data protection: [email protected]
