Legal Takedown & Dispute Process (DRAFT – attorney review)

This document is a draft for attorney review. It is not in effect and is not legal advice. It describes how Latitude 65 Technologies LLC intends to handle legal requests about YayNo™ content.

Author removal

The person who wrote a review can withdraw it, or ask us to remove it, from their account. No one else can. A business owner, a claimed listing, or another user who tries gets no button and a 403 from the API.

Business policy disputes

Available from the business dashboard and the API (`POST /api/v1/reviews/{id}/disputes`). The business picks a category and writes an explanation, and may upload evidence. Categories: hate speech or slurs, defamation or a false statement of fact about the owner personally, threats or harassment, private or personal information, not a real or verified customer / fake / conflict of interest, spam or off-topic, illegal content, or IP infringement.

That filing only enters the moderation queue. Statuses are open, under review, upheld — removed, and rejected — kept. The review stays on the public page while the status is open or under review. We notify the business of the outcome and notify the author when the dispute is opened and when it is decided. The author can respond or edit. Not responding does not take the review down. A moderator upholds or rejects, and a removal needs a decision note. Businesses cannot pay to remove a review.

What a dispute is not

• It is not a way to suppress a negative opinion. Disagreeing with an opinion is not a category.
• It does not auto-hide the review, including when a response window passes.
• It is not a court order and it is not a DMCA notice. Checking "IP infringement" on a dispute does not itself complete a DMCA notice.

Court orders, copyright, and privacy

• Policy reports: use the "Report" link on a review. This is the right path for hate, privacy leaks, fake reviews, and conflicts of interest. A report does not hide the review by itself.
• Defamation: Under Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230), platforms generally are not liable for users' content, and we do not edit reviews to change their meaning. We remove content when a court order finds it defamatory (we will check that the order is genuine and not a fake or a default judgment obtained by fraud), it clearly breaks our policy, or the law requires it. Counsel should confirm the court-order verification process and an anti-SLAPP strategy for states where a suit might be filed.
• Copyright: follow the DMCA Policy at `/legal/dmca`. A designated DMCA agent must be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office before reliance on the 17 U.S.C. § 512 safe harbor. That agent is not yet registered.
• Privacy: We remove personal information such as phone numbers, addresses, and health details when a moderator upholds that dispute, or when the law requires it. The review is not hidden merely because the request was made.

Process

Send court orders and DMCA notices to a legal contact address (to be set up and published before launch). We log each request, tell the reviewer where the law allows, and we intend to publish a yearly summary of removals. Moderators do not rewrite review text. Subpoenas seeking a reviewer's identity will be reviewed by counsel; unmasking standards differ by state, and we may notify the reviewer when the law allows so they can seek a protective order.

Lawyer to confirm

Wording for the court-order verification process; anti-SLAPP strategy; subpoena and unmasking procedure; record-keeping; DMCA agent registration; and the relationship between this page and the formal DMCA policy.

Other drafts: Terms of Use · Privacy Policy · Content & Review Guidelines · Content & Review Guidelines · Business Terms · Founding 1,000 terms · Refunds · Legal Takedown & Dispute Process · DMCA Policy