Zomato has reinstated the review of a woman who said she had food poisoning after eating at a Bengaluru restaurant, days after it was taken down by the food delivery platform. A woman named Disha Sanghvi had posted a review of the restaurant, in which she said that she and her colleague suffered from food poisoning after eating there. The review was taken down by Zomato claiming that reporting health code violations flouts its content guidelines. A screenshot of Zomato’s email to Disha went viral, and Zomato has now said that it has revised its content guidelines.
A day after she posted the screenshot, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal on Monday, October 31, responded to Disha. “Hi @DishaRSanghvi – this "policy" within our content guidelines is a result of (legal) overthinking, and we have removed this policy with immediate effect. We have also reinstated your review already. Thank you for bringing this to our notice and influencing positive change,” he wrote.
On October 30, Disha tweeted a screenshot of the email that she received from Zomato, informing her that the review was taken down. Citing its content guidelines, Zomato had said that possible health code violations must be reported to the authorities, and not on the Zomato platform. “A recent visit to a restaurant in Koramangala, B'lore left my colleague and me with a severe case of food poisoning. I wrote a review on @zomato and while doing so, found that many people had a similar experience in the last few months,” she tweeted.
Hi @DishaRSanghvi – this "policy" within our content guidelines is a result of (legal) overthinking, and we have removed this policy with immediate effect. We have also reinstated your review already. Thank you for bringing this to our notice and influencing positive change. https://t.co/B8exLG8ijO
— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) October 31, 2022
This led several people to question the platform’s content guidelines, which state that it is “not the appropriate platform for reporting illegal activities, physical confrontations, health code violations, or anything under investigation by local governing bodies or law-enforcement personnel”. According to Zomato’s guidelines and policies mentioned on its website, “If you have a dispute with a restaurant, or if you feel a restaurant does not measure up to health codes, we encourage you to contact the appropriate authorities directly. We encourage that such accusations be reported to the concerned authorities rather than being mentioned in reviews.”