WE GET TO KEEP YOUR REVIEWS

Following my departure from Ciao UK it would appear that all my reviews are now within Ciao's ownership. As shown in this lovely email received this morning:

"...Hello Nar,

as especified in our general conditions once you write a review it belongs to Ciao.

Can I edit or delete my review later?
You may edit a review which has already been published on the website, but you cannot delete the review altogether. To edit your review, locate, and click to open it. Then click on the “Edit review” link. Please be careful when making changes: any parts of the text that you delete cannot be retrieved later. Because of our cash and community point reward system, you may not, however, delete your reviews altogether. We will only remove a review if it has been placed in the wrong category, submitted numerous times, or if it breaches our Terms and Conditions. Please report any reviews of this type which you find on our Reporting Abuse pages.

Please specified why you want to delete them.
"

Apart from some poor obvious grammar I'm bloody mad. This suggests that members have to re-edit their reviews (and I have a fair idea what I would put in my mine given the chance) BEFORE they cancel their accounts. Don't let it happen to you!

At least they are leaving the door open and asking why you want them deleted ?

Has this always been the case? I'm sure in the past when people have left their reviews have also been deleted...

When I asked them to delete my account last year I also asked them to delete ALL my reviews as the copyright belongs to me and I revoked Ciao's right to further profit from my work.

My account and reviews were removed from the site within 45 minutes. But I emailed Ciao, I didn't press the self destruct button and asked them straight away.

I find it surprising, given that you are only rewarded for what you write that month, that they continue to claim ownership of your reviews. Yes, they might claim 'ownership' and make money from your reviews while your account is active, but is that claim still valid if your account is closed? My argument would be that their own PF system only rewards reviews posted within the last calendar month, so by inference, old reviews are worthless to them. However, logic is wasted upon the current Ciao staffers who are making it up as they go along, in my opinion.

You could ask for your account to be reactivated and then update your reviews and then self-destruct again? But as Tina says, the copyright is yours.

I find it hilarious that they think your reviews shouldn't be deleted because of their "community point reward system". Guffaw.

Other people have had their reviews deleted. My guess is that they don't realise you've already closed your account, Nar.

Just out of curiosity are mine still there. I don't have the energy to look but if you have, please do. Look for a review on Photo2VCD cos I think I was the only one that got written.

Thingywhatsit wrote:

Just out of curiosity are mine still there. I don't have the energy to look but if you have, please do. Look for a review on Photo2VCD cos I think I was the only one that got written.

Your reviews are still there, just checked on your Luxor PC game one.

any idea what address ciao use the most so I can write to them ?

All of them are monitored. They just rarely reply to anything.

T&C's wrote:

Members are responsible for ascertaining that they posses all rights to contents made available for publication, and grant Ciao the unlimited right (unlimited with regards to time, territory and content) to use the contents made available. This also includes editing, copying, transmission, publishing and development rights, as well as the right to transfer the rights of use to third parties without entitlement to compensation. Members are allowed to publish content that they themselves enter onto the website.

Regardless of ownership of copywrite, they have the right to keep them.

That email they sent was basically telling you that you would have needed to edit the reviews down to the 120 word minimum to get rid of them on the live site.

But lets face it, there will be a chached copy of them all somewhere anyway.

Ciao have now reinstated me following a threat to make a video of their so called policies and putting it on You Tube! But this could well be the quickest way of editing reviews and submitting fresh content, all 286 reviews lol.

Was it worth it. We could make a joint video.

LOL oh i intended to make up questionnaires about free speech and interview half of Edinburgh as well as go to the local Parliament. Id like to have seen the effects lol

I'm sure they don't have a leg to stand on if you're prepared to push any kind of argument with them. For example, you were left with no choice but to leave because of their inability to police their own site, or the fact that the "best" reviews in terms of quality of writing and content were not the ones being rewarded or you were being harassed by members through abuse reports and under the circumstances, you don't think that Ciao has a right to your own work any more.

I'm sure someone could make a convincing case that would make their T&Cs look about as watertight as a sieve.

I dissagree Aaron. The things you quote could be said to be subjective. The passage in the T&C's is very much not.

unless it was deemed unfair...perhaps Claire will be along to give us a legal view. I think they would fold too, under pressure - it isn't worth the fight for them really, not for the content of a single member's reviews (good as they always are Nar!!)


I find it a tad farcical though...I was told I couldnt delete a review...they really pushed back on it, even though I have removed several over the years, simply by self reporting them...I pointed out I could edit and remove the text myself, so what good would not removing it do...(if they remove it my 'valuable' community points go down, if I edit it and fill it with 120 words of garbage then they will not!!)

I would hate to see your account right now, Nar, if that is what you are doing..!

Vax wrote:

This suggests that members have to re-edit their reviews BEFORE they cancel their accounts.

There is an easy and very entertaining solution of course. Don't cancel your accounts - get banned instead.

Wind Ciao up. All it takes is one review which they take big exception to. First they'll delete the review and give you a warning. Reply to the warning with a 'couldn't give a toss, whatchya gonna do about it?' attitude. Then post the review again ready for them to delete. Get another warning - tell them "am I bovvered?". Post review again. etc etc...

Et Voila!!

Account and reviews deleted faster than you can say "up yours Ciao"

I knew there was a simpler way...!!

Bloody hell Erika, trust you to come out of hiding with sommit like that!

I STILL say that they will have some form of copy of the review in there system no matter WHAT you do to it.

Whether you get booted or self destruct, don't matter. If the reviews don't show, they will still be there. All ciao do in the background is change the status of the account so that you don't show.

You will still be there, they will still have the reviews. And I think the opposite - why would one of US take on ciao? I cannot think of one reason why I would want to, over some words I wrote about a product that is more than likely now defunct.

drewboy wrote:

Whether you get booted or self destruct, don't matter. If the reviews don't show, they will still be there. All ciao do in the background is change the status of the account so that you don't show.

You will still be there, they will still have the reviews.

But i've tried finding my reviews and they don't exist in the public domain. Ciao may still have them on their system but if the public can't find them they have no use to Ciao.

drewboy wrote:

And I think the opposite - why would one of US take on ciao? I cannot think of one reason why I would want to, over some words I wrote about a product that is more than likely now defunct.

Call it immature rebellion.

drewboy wrote:

Bloody hell Erika, trust you to come out of hiding with sommit like that!

What can I say.....

I wouldnt want to take on ciao either...better things to do with my time. (Allegedly, anyway!)

The only time I would really care is if the review was perhaps providing too much personal info (or cringy)...but I try and avoid them as far as possible!!

They must still be on the system somewhere otherwise all the categories I had my reviews deleted from wouldn't show one more than is actually visible. Their review count should go down if they actually deleted them.

drewboy wrote:

I dissagree Aaron. The things you quote could be said to be subjective. The passage in the T&C's is very much not.

Perhaps, Drew. I'm not a legal expert by any stretch of the imagination. I just have a gut feeling that the T&Cs are strong enough to put off bog standard numptys like us by dressing up a few rules in legalese. If you were to find someone that knew their biscuits or someone with the time and patience to stand up to them, then I suspect that the T&Cs would falter somewhat.

As Helen says in above posts, and has been said elsewhere (on Optors, for example) for years: Ciao don't uphold the T&Cs consistently. Nar not being able to get his reviews deleted and while plenty of other people have been doing it for years is just another example of Ciao being pants.

If I went to Ciao and said "Listen here, chaps. I want all my reviews deleted because I don't want my work earning money for a site where the powers that be on the community side take racist statements as abuse reports and act upon them without investigation.", I'd bet that they would soon delete my reviews.

I wonder if they remove your email address? I remember hearing of a member that shut down her account and yet still received surveys through the mail, which she couldn't complete because her account was inactive…

If I were to shut down my account, I'd want my reviews deleted too! I'd probably use Erika's method, cos it sounds like fun.

Yes Rach your review on Photo2VCD is still there. I however have just spent the last 9 hours re-editing my reviews and from what I can tell already, as an outside guest the titles are appearing but not the original content!! Im going to look closely at Ciao now to see if my original reviews appears though, to test this cache theory...