Content Guidelines
USDRE is a public platform that allows the general public to search, research, and review real estate agents. USDRE has an integrated communications platform that allows the general public to post their reviews about particular agents. The general public is able to submit information about real estate professionals and create profiles in order to discuss and post comments as long as the information posted is not of private and personal nature about a third party. Agents are able to make profiles to post content about themselves for public consumption.
USDRE is for public information to be freely posted and distributed. USDRE does not edit user-content and is not responsible for the content that users post. If there is personal and private information listed in our directory that should not be known by the public, USDRE will act to take swift action to remove the private content to the best of our ability as soon as an error or abuse report is filed with us at this link.
1. General Content Guidelines
A. People come to USDRE to connect with great local real estate agents. We know that people won’t always agree, but we expect everyone on the site to treat one another and the platform with honesty and respect. We’ve put together these general guidelines to help set the tone for discourse on the site—just in case. Please also read the additional guidelines below for specific types of content that you might contribute to the site.
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Relevance: Please make sure your contributions are appropriate to the forum. For example, reviews aren’t the place for rants about political ideologies, a business’s employment practices, extraordinary circumstances, or other matters that don’t address the core of the consumer experience.
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Inappropriate content: Colorful language and imagery are fine, but there’s no place for threats, harassment, lewdness, hate speech, or other displays of bigotry.
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Conflicts of interest: Your contributions to USDRE should be unbiased and objective. For example, you shouldn’t write reviews of your own business or if you are being compensated for the review.
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Privacy: Don’t publicize people’s private information. For instance, please don’t post close-up photos or videos of other patrons without their permission, and don’t post other people’s full names unless you’re referring to someone who is commonly referred to by their full name.
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Promotional content: Don’t post promotional material unless it’s in connection with real estate.
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Intellectual property: Don’t post content from other sites, users, or businesses. Write your own copy and share your own photos and videos.
2. Permissions
A. USDRE does not claim ownership of your content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights (like photos or videos) on or in connection with our Service, you hereby grant USDRE a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content.
3. Agent Reviews Guidelines
A. The best reviews are personal, passionate, and reflect your consumer experience. They offer a rich narrative, a wealth of detail, and a helpful tip or two for other consumers. Here are some additional thoughts for conscientious reviewers:
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Personal experience: We want to hear about firsthand experiences, not what you heard from your partner or co-worker, or what you saw in the news. Tell your own story without resorting to broad generalizations.
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Accuracy: Make sure your review is factually correct. Feel free to air your opinions, but don’t exaggerate or misrepresent your experience. We don’t take sides when it comes to factual disputes, so we expect you to stand behind your review.
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Demanding payment: Writing a review should be informative and meant to help the broader community. You should not threaten to post or offer to remove a negative review as a way to extract payment from a business.
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Review updates: Review updates should reflect a new experience or interaction with the business. Don’t keep posting about the same old story you’ve already told. If you’d like to add new insight to an old experience, you can edit your review within 30 days of posting it.
B. Reviews may be able to be edited/modified/or removed if they fall within our review removal guidelines located here: https://usdre.com/remove-reviews/
4. Photo and Video Guidelines
A. Photos and videos should be broadly relevant to the business and reflect the typical consumer experience (e.g., what the business looks like, what the business offers, etc.). If you’re a business, show us what you offer and what makes your business unique. Here are some additional things to keep in mind:
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Keep it relevant to everyone: We may remove a photo or video that isn’t relevant to other people from the photo gallery for the business.
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Keep it clean: We don’t want imagery of violence, drug use, nudity, near nudity, or suggestive acts—even if those images are an accurate representation of the business’s services or products.
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Keep it friendly: Don’t use your photos or videos to attack or disparage others. A picture is worth 1,000 words, so it’s best to pick those words carefully and make your point in a review, direct message, or review response.