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Reviews and User Content Policy

This policy covers everything people post on Expatify: reviews, classified ads, job ads, directory listings, event submissions and photos. You keep ownership of what you post and are responsible for it, you give us a licence to show it, reviews must be genuine, and we may moderate or remove content that breaks the rules or the law.

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Expatify lets people post their own content on the site. This policy explains the rules that apply to all of it. It is part of our Terms and Conditions. Some features also have their own terms:

1. What counts as user content

"User content" means anything that someone other than Expatify's editorial team puts on the site, including:

  • reviews and star ratings of businesses;
  • classified ads and their photos;
  • job ads and company logos;
  • directory listings and one-page info sites written by businesses;
  • events sent through our event form;
  • material supplied by advertisers and sponsors;
  • replies, corrections and suggestions sent to us for publication.

Messages between buyers and sellers, and job applications, are not user content on Expatify: they are sent directly between the people involved, and Expatify does not receive, pass on or keep them.

2. You are responsible for what you post

You keep ownership of your content, and you are fully responsible for it. Expatify does not write, check or endorse user content, and it does not necessarily reflect our views.

By posting, you confirm that:

  • the content is accurate, honest and based on your own knowledge or experience;
  • you own it or have permission to use it, including any photos, logos and text, and it does not infringe anyone's copyright, trade mark, privacy or other rights;
  • it does not include anyone else's personal data (such as names, phone numbers, addresses or photos of people) without their permission;
  • it is legal in Cyprus and the EU.

3. The licence you give us

So we can show your content, you give Expatify a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to host, store, copy, display, format, resize, translate and publish it on the Expatify website, in our newsletter and on our social media accounts, for as long as it is published on Expatify and for a reasonable time after that (for example, in backups and in emails already sent). This licence also lets us make small edits, such as fixing formatting, removing personal data or shortening text, without changing the meaning.

We will not sell your content to anyone else. You can ask us to remove it at any time (see section 8).

4. Rules for all content

You must not post content that:

  • is false, misleading or deceptive;
  • is defamatory, meaning it makes false statements of fact that damage a person's or a business's reputation;
  • is abusive, threatening, harassing, hateful or discriminatory, or attacks people because of a protected characteristic;
  • is sexually explicit or violent, or involves minors in any inappropriate way;
  • encourages or offers anything illegal, or breaks the Buy & Sell or Jobs rules;
  • infringes intellectual property or privacy rights;
  • is spam, advertising in the wrong place, or contains links, malware or code meant to harm users or the site;
  • pretends to be someone else, or hides a connection with a business you are writing about.

5. Reviews

Reviews help other expats choose a business, so they must be fair and genuine.

  • One review per business per person, based on your own real experience of the business, recently enough to be relevant.
  • No fake reviews. You must not write a review of your own business, your employer, a relative's or friend's business, or a competitor; write or ask for reviews in exchange for payment, discounts, gifts or other benefits; or post reviews on behalf of other people. Businesses must not ask others to write fake reviews or to hide negative ones.
  • Stick to facts and honest opinion. You can say clearly that you had a bad experience, but do not state as fact things you cannot support, and do not include personal attacks, private information or allegations of crimes.
  • Businesses may reply to reviews publicly. Replies must be polite and must not reveal the reviewer's personal data.

How we check reviews. Each review is published only after the reviewer confirms their email address through a link we send them, and each email address can review a business once. We do not check whether the reviewer actually bought from or used the business, and we do not pay for or sponsor reviews. We do not remove reviews because they are negative. We may hide or remove reviews that we reasonably believe are fake, that break this policy or the law, or after a well-founded report. Ratings show the average of the published reviews.

6. Moderation

We do not check all user content before it is published, and the law does not require us to monitor everything posted on the site. How we review content:

  • Job ads are checked by a person before they go online.
  • Classified ads and reviews go online once the author confirms their email address, and are checked after publication, for example when someone reports them.
  • Directory listings, events and advertising material are reviewed as described in their own terms.
  • We use automatic limits to slow down spam, such as a maximum number of ads, reviews or reports per person in a given time.
  • A classified ad that is reported by several different people may be hidden automatically until we look at it.

Apart from those automatic limits and temporary hiding, final decisions to remove content or restrict an account are taken by a person.

We may, without notice, refuse, edit (as described in section 3), hide or remove content, or suspend or close an account, if we reasonably believe the content or the user breaks this policy, any of our terms or the law, or puts other users at risk. When we act on your content, we give you a statement of reasons as explained on our Report Illegal Content page.

7. Reporting content

If you think something on Expatify is illegal or breaks this policy, use the "Report" link next to it or follow the steps on our Report Illegal Content page. For complaints about a review of your business, please contact us before taking any other step: we will look at it quickly.

8. Removing your own content

You can delete or mark as sold your classified ads, and close your job ads, from the link in our emails. To remove a review or any other content, contact us through our contact form. Copies may stay in backups for a limited time, and in newsletters or social media posts already sent.

9. Our liability for user content

Expatify hosts user content on behalf of the people who post it. Under EU law (the Digital Services Act, Regulation (EU) 2022/2065), we are not liable for content we host as long as we do not know it is illegal and we act quickly to remove or disable it once we become aware of it. To the extent the law allows, Expatify is not responsible for user content or for any loss caused by relying on it.

10. Indemnity

If content you post breaks this policy or the law, you agree to cover the reasonable costs, losses and legal claims that Expatify suffers because of it, including reasonable legal fees. This does not apply to the extent that a loss was caused by our own fault.

11. Changes and contact

We may update this policy. The date at the top of the page shows the latest version. Questions? Use our contact form. See also our Privacy Policy and Legal Notice.

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