Terms of Service

1. About these terms

Prouva (“Prouva”, “we”, “us”) is a free online directory and review platform for service providers in Mauritius, operated by Prouva Ltd, a company incorporated in Mauritius (BRN C236255), of The Grand Business Centre, Level 3, Block A, La Promenade, Telfair, Moka Smart City 80813 (“the Operator”). These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of the Prouva website and services (the “Platform”). By using the Platform you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform. Your acceptance by electronic means is valid and enforceable pursuant to the Electronic Transactions Act 2000 and articles 1101 et seq. and 1134 of the Civil Code of Mauritius.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter into a binding contract to use the Platform. By using it you confirm that you meet these requirements and that the information you provide is true and accurate.

3. What Prouva is — and is not

Prouva is a neutral venue that lets customers find service providers, read and publish reviews, and lets providers list and manage a profile. Prouva is nota party to any dealing, contract or transaction between a customer and a provider. We do not provide, supply, endorse, guarantee or warrant any provider's services, availability, pricing, quality, safety or conduct. Any engagement of a provider is solely between you and that provider, at your own risk and judgement. The Platform is free to use for customers and providers.

4. Accounts

Customers and providers alike create an account using a Google sign-in or an email address. Providers claim and verify their listing by submitting identity and, where applicable, business-registration evidence for our team to review. You are responsible for keeping your account secure and for activity under it. You may hold one account, must not impersonate any person or business, and must not create or use accounts to manipulate reviews or ratings. We may suspend or close accounts that breach these Terms.

5. Reviews — your responsibilities

You may post a review only if you:

• have genuine, first-hand experience of the provider;
• describe what actually happened — factual, honest and based on your own experience;
• do not post anything you know or believe to be false or misleading;
• do not post content that is defamatory, abusive, threatening, harassing, discriminatory, obscene or unlawful;
• do not disclose other people's private personal data, or accuse anyone of a crime or dishonesty without a concrete factual basis;
• have no conflict of interest (you may not review your own business, a competitor, or a business you are connected to).

You are solely responsible and liable for the content you submit. You confirm that your review is your own honest statement and is fair comment or substantially true. You acknowledge that liability for defamatory statements may arise under articles 1382 to 1384 of the Civil Code of Mauritius and the relevant provisions of the Criminal Code, and that the defences of justification (truth) and honest fair comment apply to statements that are true or based on a genuine factual basis.

6. AI-assisted wording & your approval

To keep reviews factual, we offer an automated tool that re-phrases the answers and notes you provide into a neutral, first-person draft. The tool is designed to keep reviews fair: it removes emotive, abusive or exaggerated language, and accusations that are not supported by what you describe, before you approve a draft. The draft is a suggestion only: you review, may edit it, and you approve the final wording before it is posted. We apply the same standards to positive and negative reviews alike. The published review remains your statement, not Prouva's.

7. How reviews are published & moderated

Reviews are authored by users, not by Prouva. Routine, low-risk reviews may be published automatically; reviews that are flagged by our checks (for example, those raising a serious allegation, those accompanied by a verification document, or unusual activity) are held for human review before or after publication. We may, at our discretion, edit a review for factual clarity or to remove offending material, decline to publish it, or remove it. We are under no obligation to publish or to keep any review, and acting as a responsible publisher exercising editorial diligence does not make us the author of user content. We may remove content that is unlawful, including content contrary to articles 1382 to 1384 of the Civil Code, the Criminal Code, or the Information and Communication Technologies Act 2001.

8. Verification & badges

A listing may show a status of Unclaimed or Verified. “Unclaimed” means the listing was compiled from public sources or added by a customer and no owner has been verified. “Verified” means the owner claimed the listing and we confirmed certain details — their identity and, where applicable, business registration. A “Verified review” means a quote, invoice, contract or receipt was provided and checked. Verification confirms only the specific details checked at the time. It is not a guarantee, endorsement or assurance of the quality, safety or outcome of any work. Always use your own judgement.

9. Provider listings & right of reply

A provider may be added by a customer or list themselves. A provider may claim their listing and, once verified, keep it accurate and reply publicly to reviews about them. Replies must comply with these Terms. Listing on Prouva does not create any partnership, agency or employment relationship with the Operator.

Listing removal. Many listings are compiled from information that businesses have already made public — public directories, a business's own website or public social-media page, and publicly accessible registry information; we do not create this information, we organise information already available to anyone in one place. Because removing a genuine business's listing also removes its customers' reviews, and because takedown requests are frequently made in bad faith to erase legitimate criticism, we only act on a removal request where the requester proves they are the owner or an authorised representative of the business. A removal request must be made through the in-product form while signed in, and must include: (a) the requester's government identity document; (b) proof of address corresponding to the business's registration; (c) evidence of ownership or authority to act for the business; and (d) a Business Registration Number that matches the records of the Corporate and Business Registration Department / Mauritius Network Services. Requests that do not include all of the above cannot be processed. Where the required proof is provided, we verify it against the registry and the documents supplied; this verification is necessarily thorough and may take up to ninety (90) days. Submitting false documents or a request you are not authorised to make may constitute an offence. Nothing in this clause limits any right you may have under the Data Protection Act 2017, which you may exercise by contacting the Operator.

10. Reporting & takedown

If you believe a review or other content is false, breaches these Terms or infringes your rights, report it using the “Report” option or contact us at hello@prouva.mu. We operate a clear, good-faith process for handling reports:

• every report is logged on receipt and acknowledged, and we aim to assess it promptly;
• we assess whether the content is unlawful or breaches these Terms, applying the same standards to positive and negative content;
• we take a proportionate action — which may be to add context, surface or invite the provider's reply, temporarily unpublish the content while we assess it, edit it for factual clarity, or remove it;
• content we are satisfied is unlawful — including content that is defamatory within the meaning of articles 1382 to 1384 of the Civil Code, the Criminal Code, or the Information and Communication Technologies Act 2001 — is removed;
• we keep a record of the report, our assessment and the action taken.

Providers are encouraged to use their right of reply alongside, or instead of, a report. This process is without prejudice to any right you may have under the Data Protection Act 2017, which is handled separately (see clause 9 and our Privacy Notice).

11. Acceptable use

You must not:

• post fake, incentivised or coordinated reviews, or pay for or solicit reviews in exchange for benefits;
• scrape, copy, or harvest data from the Platform, or use it to build a competing dataset;
• upload malware, attempt to gain unauthorised access, or disrupt the Platform;
• misuse another person's personal data obtained via Prouva.

Conduct under this clause may additionally contravene the Information and Communication Technologies Act 2001 (including section 46) and the Cybersecurity and Cybercrime Act 2021, and may be reported to the competent authorities.

12. Your content & our intellectual property

You retain such intellectual property rights as subsist in the content you submit under the Copyright Act 2014. You grant the Operator a worldwide, royalty-free, sub-licensable licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for factual clarity and formatting), publish and display that content on and in connection with the Platform. This licence continues for content that remains published. All other intellectual property in the Platform (including its name, design and software) belongs to the Operator and may not be used without permission.

13. Disclaimers

The Platform and its content are provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we exclude all warranties, express or implied. Reviews are individual users' opinions and experiences; ratings are computed estimates. We do not warrant that any listing, review, rating or other information is accurate, complete or current.

14. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by Mauritian law, the Operator shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for any loss of profit, business, goodwill or data, arising out of or in connection with your use of the Platform, your dealings with any provider or customer, or any content on the Platform. Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.

15. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify the Operator against claims, losses and reasonable costs arising from content you submit or from your breach of these Terms or of applicable law.

16. Suspension & termination

We may suspend, restrict or terminate your access, and remove content, where we reasonably consider it necessary to enforce these Terms or comply with the law. You may stop using the Platform and request deletion of your account at any time.

17. Changes

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be notified on the Platform. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

18. Governing law & jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Mauritius, and the courts of Mauritius have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer protections.

19. Interpretation & general provisions

If any provision of these Terms is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable, that provision shall be severed and the remainder shall continue in full force and effect. No failure or delay by the Operator in exercising any right constitutes a waiver of that right. You may not assign or transfer your rights or obligations without the Operator's prior written consent; the Operator may assign these Terms to a successor in title. The Operator shall not be liable for any failure or delay in performance caused by events beyond its reasonable control (force majeure). Headings are for convenience only. These Terms, together with the Privacy Notice, the Provider Terms and any policy referenced herein, constitute the entire agreement between the parties and supersede all prior understandings. References to any enactment are to that enactment as amended, re-enacted or replaced from time to time.

20. Contact

Questions about these Terms: hello@prouva.mu, Prouva Ltd, The Grand Business Centre, Level 3, Block A, La Promenade, Telfair, Moka Smart City 80813, Mauritius.