Review Terms – Plat's Blog

As my YouTube channels have grown in visibility and viewership, I have been contacted by numerous product vendors in order to review their products. Whilst reviewing supplied products is not the goal of either channel, some products may align with the key focusses, or otherwise have overlap – such as useful tools – in which case the opportunities to test and review the product is welcome.

The two channels see over 1,000 combined views daily, and both continue to grow. Many users view my content for technically oriented and impartial reviews, which I hold personal value in. As such, I thought it best to set out some simple terms for such suppliers to understand before committing to any collaboration, in order to ensure a common starting point to ideally foster a mutually beneficial engagement.

The Rules

Before going on with the rules, I’d like to preface this section with a goal statement: My aim is to produce quality reviews, benchmarks or otherwise demonstrations of products as impartially as possible – but that is not to say that there may not be humour or otherwise jest in some videos. This aim is with an intent to show what viewers would likely experience when making use of a product for themselves, at times with comparisons, disassembly / modification, or in unexpected use-cases. As a hobbyist, I volunteer my time and experience in order to produce reviews that I hope the internet community values highly. In order to do this, I spend both my personal time and money to create these videos, which exist primarily as a passion project at the time of writing.

With this in mind, I hope you can appreciate the need for the following rules and find them reasonable:

Some reviews may require payment. Typically, this would be if the review is requested to have an accelerated timeline, or to review the product without comparison alongside others. This is simply to cover a small portion of my time. If this is the case, I will let you know during our initial engagement.
Product vendors, regardless of payment, do not get to stipulate any wording used in the review including how I position the product or my final thoughts, but may specify the intended use case, key specifications or features that I may highlight, or similar attributes.
Reviews will not be subject to vendor approval after recording and editing.
Similarly, no payments will be taken to remove, edit, or otherwise alter any review.
Vendors should provide all related links to public product listings, documentation, software or firmware updates, forums, and applicable purchase pages.
Where available, links to product listings on Amazon would be preferential, and likely shared in the video description with a note of it being an Amazon Affiliate link.
Other affiliation platforms will not be engaged unless the case is exceptional.
Links used may be placed behind a URL shortening service such a https://geni.us for Amazon products, or my own https://plati.ma/go/ for others. This is done both for engagement tracking, and to supporting viewers in purchasing products from a geographically appropriate online store.
You will cover the cost of sending the product to me, to an address I nominate. The product will not be returned. If it is necessary, I can negotiate on this requirement, however due to high postal charges, unless the item is particularly valuable, I don’t see this as being an option.
Once the product has been posted, I cannot be held liable for losses of the package in the postal system. The title to the product(s) passes to me once received.
Once the item is received, I will produce the review as I see fit. It is likely that the product will be extensively examined, tested, and may even be taken apart – possibly to the point of destruction.
As the product is now mine, I will do as I see fit. This includes keeping the product for use in future testing and comparisons.
The review may not incorporate all aspects of the product(s), especially if it is a range of products sent, or if the product is particularly complex, or not completely within the typical product ranges reviewed.
Similarly, if the product is quite simple or easy to use, the review may be shorter than usual or otherwise be included in a review with another product that would likely be similar in some way.
If the product fails in any way, it will likely be documented. If time permits, I will typically attempt to liaise with your service or support team in order to find a fix or workaround, but this cannot always be guaranteed.
In case of severe trouble, or frustrations that take up time beyond a reasonable amount, I reserve the right to refuse to deliver a review with no compensation, but in some circumstances, this may instead simply result in a delayed review.
The review will be produced and published online as soon as possible. No definite timeframe can be committed to, as I am often unpredictably busy and some products take longer than others to review.
Historically most products have been reviewed within two months, but this may be negotiated if it is a paid review.
I reserve the right to place links to any other resources that my viewers may find useful such as similar products and datasheets. This may include competitors’ products.
Under no circumstances can I be held liable for any losses or damages incurred by sending a product for review, including direct and consequential. That being said, I’m also happy if you don’t hold me liable for anything good that might happen.
As all content is generally created by me, I own all copyrights to the material. I do, however, encourage you to share the review with anyone who may be interested, and make as many back-up copies of the review only, electronic or hardcopy, as required for your own personal and corporate requirements.
In the case excerpts are made from the review, attribution for the review shall be given to Platima Tinkers (https://plati.ma) and a prominent link to the review video placed.
No review will be removed unless legally required to do so. That means, unless I receive a cease-and-desist letter. I am not, however, responsible for any copies of content that remain on archive services, search engines, in back-ups or hard copy printouts made by users.
I will not remove or modify any aspect of the review unless:
- It was factually incorrect at that time and can be clearly shown to be so. If any statements become factually incorrect in the future, I cannot be held responsible. I can only claim that it was factually correct to the best of my knowledge at the time of publication. Even then, I may choose to amend the review to reflect any corrections, but I will not entertain change requests unless I am satisfied there is a factual problem with the review.
- It is a simple editorial mistake, e.g. a typo, and changing it would not affect the result of the review.
- It is a mistake in data presentation and changing it would correct the review.
If, in the future, follow-up testing shows that your product has severe problems, I reserve the right to edit the review and publish follow-up postings detailing any issues encountered and retract my support for your product.
I cannot guarantee the reviews produced will remain online and accessible at all times. Due to circumstances beyond my control, not limited to YouTube’s actions, I cannot ensure that the video will always be accessible. I will, however, endeavour to keep it online as long as reasonably possible, these terms notwithstanding.

This might sound like a lot of rules, but it’s what is necessary to ensure that I can go about reviewing products as thoroughly and impartially as possible, in a way that is most transparent and gains the viewers trust.

As a result, I would strongly recommend that those who are interested in taking up the challenge ensure they stand by their products 100% and are confident in their prospects before they consider submitting their product.

If you are interested, please contact me by e-mail which is also available on my YouTube channels (here and here) and https://shop.plati.ma e-commerce site.

Common Reasons for Refusal

Despite my willingness to review products, I may choose to refuse to review your product with some of the most common reasons being:

I’m just not interested in your product. Without intending offence, I consider my time limited and valuable, and as such may find that the product doesn’t interest me or might not interest my audience.
Similarly, if I believe the products features, intended use case, or ideal audience is too far outside of my key focus areas, then I may consider such engagement detrimental to my goals and branding.
I’m running out of time to do anything. As I do this as a hobby, and have a life of my own to live, I hope that it is understandable that I might have to pass on some offers especially if I’m inundated with other things to look at.
I’m not experienced enough in your sort of product to offer a decent critique. There are some things which I just don’t have the experience to review adequately, so I will pass on those offers.
The product itself is obviously faulty, or you have sent me several faulty products in a row. If you evidently don’t have good quality control, and you send me this sort of result, I don’t believe it being genuinely worth either of our time.
It appears obvious that all you care about are link-backs or similar search engine optimisation. Marketing products of minimal utility repeatedly whilst simultaneously requesting specific link formats, link texts, or keyword terms, demonstrates that you likely don’t respect the time of me or my audience. While I am happy to put in a link as requested, doing this over and over just isn’t on.

I do these reviews because there are some genuinely interesting, worthwhile, innovative, high-performance else new and exciting products out there, some of which deserve some exposure and that I of course want to experience myself. In other cases, there are great products out there waiting to be discovered. In more cases again, it’s because I feel that there needs to be proper testing and comparison in a review. In the end, my aim is to have fun, be honest, and inform the viewer – in both positive and negative aspects, in an open or similarly transparent fashion.

Thank you four your time and consideration regardless of the outcome.

-Platima, or just ‘Plat’