Guidelines and Policies

If there’s one thing we truly love, it’s sharing in all the great moments you have.

While we welcome your opinions and descriptions of your experiences, there are a few things we expect from every user on Himachal Digital. Your reviews and photos, as well as your profile and the comments you share, are all subject to Content Guidelines, our Code of Conduct.

If your activity on Himachal Digital doesn’t match up to these content guidelines, we reserve the right to take action as we deem necessary. This could include altering or deleting your reviews or comments, restricting your review activity or deleting your Himachal Digital account altogether, with or without notice. Himachal Digital also utilizes an algorithm to aid in removing suspicious reviews. If you feel your review was deleted in error, email us at [email protected].

If you see content that does not align with these guidelines or our Terms of Service, please let us know. We will consider all reports. However, due to the diversity of our community, it is possible that content disagreeable to you might not meet the criteria to be removed.

Code of Conduct

• Keep out the clutter: To make sure we collectively work towards building the highest-quality content that’s useful to everyone, reviews need to be a minimum of 80 characters long for business reviews.. That’s just about the length of a tweet, so it’s convenient even for all you micro-bloggers. If you cover the quality, service and ambience, you shouldn’t fall short on characters. We do not have 140 characters limit for an online order review. However, if any review is filled with junk, we might have to remove the review altogether.
• Keep it relevant: Please keep your contributions relevant to Himachal Digital. Accounts placing irrelevant, inappropriate, or promotional content, reviews with similar digital signatures that spam business/listing, or are based on any already disclaimed or informed policies and practices of a business/listing may be deleted without notice. If your review has been removed or moderated by us and if you repost another experience for the same business, we reserve the right to remove that review too, even though such review might be in line with our content guidelines. In the case of spam, we can restrict your review activity on Himachal Digital.
• Keep it clean: Whether you’re writing a small snippet or a delightfully detailed account of your experience, keep foul/abusive/hateful language, threats, and lewdness out of it. We, just like you, hate junk and will delete it whenever we see it. This also includes (but is not limited to) derogatory comments on someone’s protected characteristics (e.g. race, gender, religion) or indication of a personal vendetta against a business and its associates.
• Keep it fresh: Only one review per business for an experience and one review for each online transaction can be submitted and your most recent experience at a place counts. That’s what is going to help people when they’re trying to decide whether or not to visit there. You’re free to edit and update your review based on subsequent visits at any time. Reviews about old experiences (more than 6 months old) may also be deleted from our platform.
• Keep it real: Write your review based on facts and your own experiences (e.g. not a friend’s or any hearsay experience or based on media reports). Please don’t exaggerate or falsify your experience. We do not take sides in cases of dispute, so make sure you can stand by your word. Content that indicates the reviewer hasn’t even visited or availed any services from the business will be removed. For example, “Never been here, never want to. Management is horrible and the product/service is worse!” Deceptive, fake, or misleading reviews will be removed. Accepting or soliciting a kickback – monetary or otherwise – in exchange for reviews or photographs is also not acceptable, and could result in the removal of your profile.
• Don’t solicit: Identifying or promoting yourself as an official Himachal Digital blogger, or using your status to solicit any kind of benefits (including but not limited to accepting money, free product(s), service(s)) in exchange for promotion, or at the threat of negative reviews on Himachal Digital, will not be tolerated. If reports or evidence of such instances are brought to our attention, we reserve the right to delete your Himachal Digital profile or take any other action that we may deem fit, no questions asked. Acts that constitute as ‘Solicitation’ include:
  • Explicit/Implied agreement (written or verbal) to write reviews in exchange for money, a free product(s), service(s), etc.
  • Being a part of social media groups (e.g. WhatsApp/Facebook or any other social media platform) which offer incentives in exchange of reviews.
• Don’t steal: Plagiarism is something we take seriously. Copying others’ reviews or photos from Himachal Digital or other platforms,, or even re-posting your own in multiple places on Himachal Digital (in full or in part), is something that will not be tolerated and may be removed/ moderated.. We trust that you’ll play fair and create your own content.
• Tell the whole story: If you luck into a free product or service as a guest of the business, or have a relevant association with a business or its owners, give full disclosure in your review. We’re sure that honesty is the best policy, and other users will respect you even more for it. If you have made it to the major league as a writer or critic, let us know and we can provide special access for your blog link to appear with your reviews. We love summaries, but incomplete reviews with a manually added link will be removed.
• Be yourself: Your profile is your identity on Himachal Digital, so keep it real. You’re welcome to use a screen name (iamjamesbond, maybe?), but please refrain from using inappropriate names, bios, or profile images. We want to stay clean, and we might end up removing your account depending on how inappropriate your profile is.
• Don’t misrepresent: Identifying or promoting yourself as an official Himachal Digital blogger, or using your status to solicit benefits in exchange for promotion or at the threat of negative reviews on Himachal Digital will not be tolerated. If reports or evidence of such instances are brought to our attention, we reserve the right to delete your Himachal Digital profile, no questions asked.
• Don’t be a bully: We take allegations of blackmail or threatening behaviour against business and its associates very seriously. This activity is strictly against our guidelines and may also be illegal in many locations. Reviews submitted in an attempt to blackmail a business and its associates will be deleted.
• Play by the rules: The content you add should be in compliance with Himachal Digital’s Terms and Conditions, including terms and conditions of any of Himachal Digital products such as Himachal Digital Plus, Online Ordering, Online Booking, Booking Events, as well as the prevailing local laws and regulations. Local laws take precedence, and content may be moderated or deleted to adhere to these.
• Seek help from the right people: Himachal Digital is a website and mobile application with no claims to be a court of law or a ministry (we aren’t serious enough to do those jobs). If you have a dispute with a business, or if you feel a business does not measure up to business ethics, we encourage you to contact the appropriate authorities directly. Himachal Digital is not the appropriate platform for reporting illegal activities, physical confrontations, business ethics violations, or anything under investigation by local governing bodies or law-enforcement personnel. We encourage that such accusations be reported to the concerned authorities rather than being mentioned in reviews.

Photo guidelines

It’s important to keep in mind our photo guidelines and understand why some photos may be moved or removed once they’ve been added.

Violation of the below-mentioned pointers may lead to deduction of HD points, reduced visibility or deletion of your pictures

• Photos that are exact duplicates of other photos, multiple clicks of the same product or ambience or taken from different angles
• Plagiarized photos
• Photos of others posted without their permission
• Photos that contain promotional content
• Photos that contain subject such as people in it
• Photos that are blurry or unclear
• Photos that contain text, or are not related to business
• Photos containing watermarks or write-ups of any kind
• Unpleasant photos that ruin people’s appetites

Guidelines for Businesses

Himachal Digital is a great way for business to reach out to a vast online community. A few things you should keep in mind:

• Keep your business listing updated: While our team makes every effort to keep information on Himachal Digital up-to-date, we appreciate you letting us know when an update is required. If your timings change and your listing is not updated, customers arriving late won’t be too happy with you (or Himachal Digital).
• Don’t solicit reviews: The best way to get reviews is to delight customers with your product and service. Selective solicitation is a strict NO, and offering any type of compensation or kick-back for reviews is unfair, so you definitely want to keep away from that, too.
  • Don’t ever offer freebies, discounts, or payment in exchange for reviews
  • Don’t offer incentives for users to remove reviews
  • Don’t ask your staff to compete with each other to collect reviews
  • Don’t work with companies or third-party vendors/PR agencies offering to ‘fix your reviews/ratings’
  • While conducting community meetups is allowed, reviews which come in lieu of these official gatherings must carry a clear disclaimer which will help the others identify that the review is based on an invite. That being said, an invite certainly does not mean that the user needs to post a positive review
  • The businesses that do best on Himachal Digital are the ones that provide a great customer experience to everyone who walks in the door without any expectation or encouragement that they write a positive review
  • If we do come across any evidence (direct/indirect) of you indulging in the solicitation, we will activate a disclaimer on your business’s page, informing the Himachal Digital community that your reviews are suspicious.
• Respond to criticism positively: Take two deep breaths when you get a negative review. Three, if required. This happens to all businesses who have customers. These customers are always right, even when they are wrong. Take the unflattering reviews as constructive feedback and use it as an opportunity to fix things. Whether you agree with the feedback or not, take the criticism in good stride. You can reply with a management response to show you care, but please don’t use this as a platform to hit back or offer the customer an incentive to edit their review. Your response can’t be edited after posting, so choose your words well.
• Be accountable: Himachal Digital will not moderate any questionable activities about your business posted in reviews. (e.g. serving shisha where it is not permitted, serving alcohol to minors, or staying open later than permitted). Himachal Digital may also not moderate or delete any reviews where any third party service provider is involved. Such a review may be retained if it falls within our guidelines. This business requires thick skin – stating the perceived attitude of owners or employees and reporting of individual actions are not considered personal attacks.
• Don’t entertain: Fulfilling the demands of customers who ask for benefits at the threat of bad reviews or ratings, sends a message that this behaviour is tolerated. Similarly, inviting users who have reviewed and given a low rating back to the restaurant for a complimentary meal, invites false negative reviews. These issues affect the entire community and require everyone’s participation to curb their prevalence. Please report users who engage in such activities to [email protected]
• In a concerted effort to maintain the neutrality of content on Himachal Digital, business owners, employees, and any affiliates with business interests are no longer permitted to write reviews on a business. We understand that being in the business, you are truly passionate about products, services and would love to share your experiences. But when you’re unavoidably invested in your business, it becomes hard to leave emotions (and bias) at the door. This is a step towards maintaining neutrality – and quality – of the content on Himachal Digital.

It’s also important to note that we (Himachal Digital) have no employees or affiliates who are paid to review. If any guest identifies themselves as an official blogger, review employee, or associate of Himachal Digital, it’s not true. Employees of Himachal Digital are contractually and ethically forbidden from using their status to solicit free meals or receive special treatment. If you observe any such practice, report it to [email protected]. Appropriate action will be taken against the user or employee if evidence can be provided.

Himachal Digital Employee Code of Ethics

Employees of Himachal Digital are expected to adhere to and uphold the highest standard of ethics and integrity. This includes acting in accordance with our core values and the below-listed policies at all times.

Himachal Digital employees are prohibited from using their employee status to solicit discounts, freebies, or special treatment at business. Unless visiting a business for official work, Himachal Digital employees are to refrain from identifying themselves as employees of Himachal Digital.

All Himachal Digital employees in client-facing roles including but not limited to Sales, Sales Support, Neutrality, Media Content and Client Servicing across all transaction/ business/function at Himachal Digital are prohibited from writing reviews and/or giving ratings for experiences on Himachal Digital from either their personal or Himachal Digital accounts. They are also not permitted to influence others to write biased reviews or give ratings.

Himachal Digital’s review and photo moderators are required to always act in favour of keeping Himachal Digital a neutral platform. They are required to use their best judgement in implementing moderation guidelines and are prohibited from giving preferential treatment to business. Deleting any authentic review from a business page is in violation of our policies. Similarly, keeping reviews, which are proven to be unauthentic, is in violation of our policies.

Please email [email protected] if you witness any behaviour not in compliance with this code as it is in direct violation of employee contracts.