As a core Zomato value, we have worked relentlessly to identify both restaurants and users who engage in unethical means to influence restaurant ratings and reviews. While we have identified more than a few ‘bad actors’ on the platform, the fight is far from over!

Over the past two months, our Neutrality team has removed over 300+ high activity users from the Zomato platform on grounds of “solicitation” (where influential foodies are incentivised or offer to join hands —  in some cases for monetary gains — to write about restaurants), as we gathered sufficient evidence to prove their involvement in these unethical, and sometimes even illegal practices.

The time has now come to shift our focus to restaurant owners who also play an active role in promoting solicitation.

Starting March, we will be aggressively warning users of suspicious reviews and ratings for such restaurants on the Zomato platform. This will done through a two step process – 

1. We will be sending a warning to restaurants where we detect suspicious activity – restaurants will have to respond quickly to make sure that all solicited reviews are proactively detected and removed from the Zomato platform and their listing page.
2. Post such warnings, if any malicious behaviour continues, we will display this warning banner on the restaurant’s page on Zomato. This banner will remain on the page for a period of three months.

This is the first of many safeguards that Zomato will put in place to counter bad actors while placing trust front and centre. We are also working closely with our entire restaurant base to come up with ways to proactively help their business as they work tirelessly to compete in a tough and inspiring food world as well as our foodies who have made our community what it is today.

However, without our users’ help, this move would be a far-fetched idea. So, here’s an appeal to all our users: if you come across any restaurant that promises monetary/material gains in exchange for biased reviews on Zomato, we urge you to share the information with us at neutrality@zomato.com along with concrete evidence (quotations, email exchanges, whatsapp group screenshots, Facebook Groups posts & more).

In exchange, here’s a sweet deal for all such vigilante users who love being a part of a clean Zomato community – beginning March, we are launching a Zomato Review Bounty program for 30 days.

Each vigilante user will earn up to ₹10,000 Zomato Credits (which can be used to order food delivery through Zomato) if –

• You are the first one to flag the restaurant to us
• The evidence you have shared is information we can verify independently
• The evidence must be recent or atleast within the last month

Also, every week, one vigilante user will earn ₹50,000 worth of Zomato Credits for flagging the highest number of restaurants engaging in review solicitation.

I’d strongly urge you to join us in our ongoing fight against paid reviews and help us maintain the neutrality of our platform towards both – our users as well as our restaurant partners.
If you have any other suggestions on how we can increase the sanctity of the Zomato platform, please reach out to us at neutrality@zomato.com – this will go a long way in maintaining a trustworthy platform which all of us can rely on to make better food choices.