Dear Community,
I would like to inform you that we will most likely no longer feature this brand on Parfumo.
The reason for this is complaints from the brand owner about a negative review that they want us to remove. The claim is that the purchase of the perfume in question from the brand cannot be traced and that the opinion is therefore not authentic / fake.
Since we have strictly refused to make a deletion for this reason, we are now to remove all perfumes of the brand from Parfumo.
This means that many great reviews from you will be lost, which I am of course very sorry about.
I think it is important to inform you about this situation so that no confusion arises. You should save your texts for later. I am happy to share with you the statement we sent to Aaron Terence Hughes on 22 March.
We've investigated your concern with the following outcome:
We follow this common definition of 'review': A 'review' is a derivative of an 'opinion' and an opinion is merely an idea, judgment or concept that a person has or forms about something or someone.
It is personal. It is neither a fact nor is it representative of anyone other than the (one) person who left the review.
Another opinion in the age we live is that one should be able to submit a review and read reviews online in every conceivable manner, whether you're rating your Amazon delivery driver, the Whopper you ordered at Burger King or the mechanic who serviced your car. People, it seems, have a lot of opinions!
At Parfumo we endeavor to foster a community that engages with our topic and this includes leaving reviews. Our community guidelines require that users of our site adhere to common decency standards but we do not otherwise attempt to impinge upon free speech or censor someone's opinion.
Having reviewed the comments left against your perfumes we have concluded that there has been no use of derogatory, defamatory or anti-social language used and we judge that no 'bashing' of anyone has been inferred. As we have found no such content we surmise the reviews written constitute personal opinions and find no reason to edit or remove the published reviews.
To the question you raised as to whether the reviews should be considered 'honest'; as the reviews are merely a personal opinion, this would be a subjective matter. If you feel you have been personally aggrieved by an individual known to you we would encourage you to seek professional or legal recourse against such individual. Your local Citizens Advice Bureau should be able to help you with such matters.
We will always welcome inquiries and should you find anything else at any time you believe contravenes our policies or your legally held rights, please do reach out to us.
We hope you feel we've addressed your concern directly and that you understand our response, even if it's not the one you were hoping for. We remain appreciative of all the members of our community and website and we thank you for taking the time to contact us.
