I've a negative review about Dog Breed Info, about their customer service and ethics and the honesty of the info they share.
The site has a page where positive feedback that has been E-mailed to the website owner are shared (there is positive feedback, success stories, testemonials, on the page). One day after looking on our home computer I discovered that my young, minor daughter (under 13 years old) had sent the website 2 'success stories' which were made up, and she used made up names. Once I learned about this, I guessed the reason she had made up and sent in the fake "success stories" was because she had always dreamed about having dogs growing up but we never did- and I asked her and she said that was why she did it.
So I sent the website a polite, respectful, apologetic E-mail explaining that my daughter had sent in the 2 fake success stories that were now on the site. I told her exactly which 2 submissions were the fake ones she had sent in and worded it and reread over the E-mail to make sure it made sense. Asked her to remove the submissions because 1) they were fake so the site wouldn't want fake info, 2) I didn't want my daughter to think lying would be okay and that there would be no consequences for lying, 3) because she is so young it is a rule in our family that she does not contact anyone via the computer without our approval, and she hadn't asked us for approval
There also is an agreed on rule online that has special guidelines for children under the age of 13, if a website owner finds out info has been submitted by those children without parental consent, it should be removed (that's how I understand it). I read Dog Breed Info's Privacy Policy Terms of Service info and that rule about children under 13 was listed.
I didn't get a reply back to that E-mail. I checked the site and saw a Site Updates page and saw updates had been made in the past couple of days, including updates that were submissions from other people- meaning the site owner had checked their E-mail but my E-mail was not acknowledged. So I E-mailed again a few days later, still no response. I E-mailed once more, this time w/ details of the E-mail address used to send in one of the submissions as proof that we weren't making this up and that my daughter seriously had sent in the two 'success stories' (a random person would not have known the E-mail address or email info provided). Still I recieved NO REPLY ever. So, over the course of maybe 2 weeks I sent 3 E-mails, describing the situation, making sure not to sound rude and giving proof I wasn't making it up since I knew the E-mail address used. I asked for a quick reply if she had time just to let me know if she had any questions or tell me if for some reason she would not remove the stories from the site. But STILL no reply ever. After those 3 spread out E-mails, I gave them one last chance- messaged them on Facebook in case their E-mail didn't work. Again, ignored. No reply even though their Privacy Policy page said if you had submitted information you wanted removed or changed that you should contact them and theyd do their best to help you, no reply even thoug they say they care about 13 year old minor internet safety rules.
Here is an excerpt I copied from their Privacy Policy, it says they'll delete your submitted information if you request, but they didn't delete it as I said. Like I said, they also included in another part of the Policy the 13 years old and under rule, and here they include the Child Online Privacy Protection Act but ignore that too. From their privacy policy: [As a matter of standard procedure, information submitted by you will generally be stored indefinitely on our servers. That said, if we are required by law to delete information submitted by you (such as your name, e-mail address, or photographs which youve submitted) from our databases, such as under the Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), or if you were to make such a deletion request, we will do so.]
So that tells you that the site seems to have poor customer service, communication, or manners, it also says something else important: That at least 2 (and, maybe more, I don't know) of the 'success stories' are not actual success stories people've had. Makes me question how reputable, any other part of the website is too, if they don't make sure to only have true information on that page.
End of review. Just find it sad this person apparently doesn't care about respecting parent wishes, agreements about child internet use which they said to support on their legal pages but apparently ignore, or having honest info on the website.