I recently uncovered an incident where Burrp seems to have deleted a user review. Nishith, founder of Pune based True Sparrow Systems (team behind SocialMedian – acquired by Xing), wrote a review for a Pune based burger joint, which he tweets was deleted by Burrp.
While I havent seen this as frequently occurring scenario, I am wondering if there are other similar instances that simply go unreported.
Burrp’s Terms of Service do state that they have the right to delete any content, including user posted reviews:
You understand and agree that Burrp may review and delete any Content, entertainment listings, business listings (including business name, address, phone, fax, distance, reviews, rating, reviews) that in the sole judgment of Burrp violates these Terms of Service or which might be offensive, illegal, or that might violate the rights of, harm, or threaten the safety of other users or members of the Burrp Site and/or other website users.
Its unclear why Burrp deleted Nishith’s comment and whether it violated Burrp’s ToS or it was deleted simply for building relationships with the biz – aka, financial gain.
If you have encountered a similar experience, do leave a comment and let me know.
Our goal is to maintain the quality of reviews on the site and encourage users to share their real experiences. The review in question was deleted because it was not a review about a personal experience at the cafe but instead a comment on the arrogant response from the business owner to another user. Keeping the review would have in fact favorably affected the overall review count of the business and pushed them up on the search results page. An explanation to this effect was sent to Nishith as well.
burrp! would never delete a user review for financial gain or relationships with business owners. The restaurant in question is not a client; even if it was it would not give them access to deleting user reviews. In fact, we are extremely particular about comments from users and take strict action against business owners who are putting up fake reviews for personal gain.
We will continue to do whatever it takes to maintain clean content on the site. Even if it means removing reviews that are not relevant.
thanks for the clarification aarti – I did give Burrp the benefit of doubt since I havent seen many such occurrences:
While I havent seen this as frequently occurring scenario,
Burrp even removed my comments. My understanding is that they favor some restaurants. My comment was removed because I commented on the food and service quality of Egg Factory. They replied saying it violated some rules. God knows what rule I broke because they did not explicitly mention that. Apparently every body writes goody goody things about Egg Factory but my review would have spoilt their image. Hence Egg Factory must be paying some tip to Burrp ( their monetization mechanism is weak ) to rip off any bad review. I guess as long as you dont use swear words or write unrelated reviews, every review should be allowed. Wake up Burrp…its WEB 2.0!!!!
@Aarti – I think if Burrp (or any other company) deletes user content, they should replace the review with a note saying why it was deleted, something very similar to what you mentioned here. It will help users, who take time to write content, to understand how they can make better use of the tools and not violate ToS.
Gaurav – I think thats a great idea. Providing a brief explanation would leave the reviewer less perplexed on why their review / comment was deleted.
Gaurav, that indeed is a good idea and on the face of it something that’s very easy for us to pull off. Thanks for the tip.
Gaurav/Pranav – Thanks a ton for the suggestion. We are implementing this change soon and will keep startupdunia informed about the development.
burrp deletes bad reviews of restaurants….. in short they are being paid by the restaurants to have only good ones on the site……
corruption even on websites….. new way to earn money in india.
@Sathish, can you back up your claim with any proof? Please don’t spread rumours. btw, the feature that Gaurav suggested is now live on the site.
I have a question, just a personal thought, does Amazon / youtube / walmart / Yelp delete the comments….
I personally feel that content containing derogatory statements or bad remarks should be moderated by the people who read them rather then the people who host the site.Let the people decide what content is good or bad.
Also check this ‘what these people did when they deleted content’
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1534-hulu-ceo-we-screwed-up-royally
I have had burrp comments deleted for no reason….
write a bad experience about a restaurant one day and it will disappear the next day.
ubhi & burrp sucks….
I do agree that some kind of moderation is necessary, who determines how much?
I think moderation should be left to users, if it is a content website, they could flag the comments which are inappropriate.
YES, its true.
Burrp deleted 2 best reviews which we got from our customers and SOMEONE have put a fake bad review for our restaurant @ bandra.
They have forced us to do advertising with them, we said we are not interested currently. and few days later our good reviews were deleted and fake reviews had come…
if anybody closely watches burrp,you can easily find out the one who pays them get a good review and one who doesn’t get negative reviews, specially in case of restaurants and yeah atleast 50 percent of reviews are fake…..bitchslapped is for restaurants who have have thrashed them, it sucks big time….
all this is a money game…do you think burrp is here for public service…certainly not…they want to make money….business practices…you know