Neither Independent Nor "Open" Review Platform
Since the initial review posted at otzovik.com was about a company rendering device/appliance metrology services at customer’s, I consider it important to also mention that review.
So, on 28th of January, 2026 I shared my experience dealing with a device/appliance metrology services company (Company). I did that at otzovik.com review platform (Platform). This was not my first review as I had been a registered user at the Platform for more than four years. The very next day I received an email notification that told me the Company’s official representative commented on my review, and I had to respond to the commentary lest my review be blocked/concealed by the Platform.
And here goes the most interesting part.
The Platform description section located at its web-site, otzovik.com, starts with “Otzovik.com – это открытый сервис отзывов, где любой желающий может
зарегистрироваться и оставить своё личное мнение о каком-либо продукте, компании или сервисе”* which literally translates “Otzovik.com is an open service for public reviews, where anyone registered as a user can leave their opinion on a product, a company or a service”. Now, with the introduction of “official representative” mechanism by the Platform big problems start. Namely, the “official representative” option allows each and every business to register their representative at the Platform. This, in turn, allows them to question any user’s review as calumnious, contrived, forged etc. When I came to read the Company official representative’s commentary on my review, I noticed that they literally demanded from me to be identified as “their client”, and also to provide additional info including personal and other sensitive data. I responded to the commentary, and the translated text of my response you can read below:
“Hello!
Otzovik.com is an open service for public reviews, where anyone registered as a user can leave their opinion on a product, a company or a service. There’s no need for the Service users to be identified by any third parties as the latter’s “clients”. Service users personal and identity data are not meant to be published on Internet. ...
Thus, the Service is in no way a legal portal – here one can find published reviews about market entities, and anyone reading such reviews is free to take them as Author’s personal opinion. Also, this Service is not a plenipotentiary representative of LLC «Dostupnyy Servis» (the device/appliance metrology services Company) as to acceptance, collection and accumulation, storage and processing of
requests and complaints, addressed thereto, as well as their further forwarding to the latter. This review goes as a post-interactive instrument: the interaction between the Customer (myself) and the Provider (LLC «Dostupnyy Servis»)
had ended BEFORE this review was posted at otzovik.com. It (the interaction) will not be renewed upon the Customer’s request/initiative – now or in the future.
Accordingly, there are neither reasons nor grounds to share any additional data with the Company (the Provider).
Thank you for your attention!”
It turned out that my initial mistake was the assumption otzovik.com was an independent review platform. And it wasn’t. Even as I was writing the abovementioned response to the Company official representative’s commentary on my review, I received a message from the Platform’s tech support. The message that told me imperatively (???) to submit my PD to the Company. On February 2, I asked the tech support to give me the info to contact the independent data operator (Operator) whom I, possibly, could entrust my personal and other sensitive data – and so could do the Company’s official representative – so that the Operator could process and verify any data questioned by LLC «Dostupnyy Servis».
Time passed. All the reasoning and facts I provided were successfully ignored by otzovik.com Eventually, my review was falsely designated (under the Company official representative’s pressure) as calumnious or contrived, and blocked by the Platform on February 6. Lastly, I received a “response” from the tech support to my request. The word-for-word translation of the “response” I put here:
“Please, thoroughly describe your problem. Did you get an in-process error message? The screenshot would be highly appreciated”
Finally, getting full understanding of otzovik.com – and specifically about their tech support – I left the latter with the following tip:
“My request of 02.02.2026 9:34AM should have been forwarded to the corresponding department of the review Platform (legal, if there’s any) for the adequate response”
As of now, there’s been no reaction from otzovik.com
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* – I recently discovered that this clause had been removed from the web-site
