Terms of Use

Last updated: October 8, 2026

1. Agreement to these terms

Black Owned World (blackownedworld.com) is operated by Black Stamped LLC, doing business as Black Stamped Advertising, of Texas (“Black Owned World,” “we,” “us”). These Terms of Use are a binding agreement between you and us. By using the site, posting a review, submitting a business, claiming a listing or calling a number shown on the site, you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you don’t agree, don’t use the site.

Who may use the site. Anyone may browse. To post a review, submit a business or claim a listing, you must be at least 18 years old and able to enter a binding contract. If you act for a business, you confirm you’re authorized to bind it to these terms.

Changes. We may update these terms. We’ll change the “Last updated” date and, for significant changes, post a notice on the site. Using the site after a change means you accept the new terms. Changes don’t apply to a dispute we already knew about before the change.

2. What the directory is, and isn’t

Black Owned World is an information directory. We help people find Black-owned businesses. We are not a party to anything between you and a business.

• Listings come from many sources. We build them from public information, submissions from the public, business owners and automated tools, including AI. Hours, prices, phone numbers and other details can change or be wrong. Check directly with the business before relying on them.
• Verification labels mean only what they say. “Community-sourced” means the listing came from public information or a submission and hasn’t been confirmed by the owner. “Owner-confirmed” means someone showing control of the business confirmed the details. “Verified Black-Owned” means we reviewed documents the owner provided showing at least 51% Black ownership at the time of review. Ownership can change after we review it. Our full process is on the How We Verify page.
• A listing is not an endorsement. Listing, featuring or verifying a business doesn’t mean we recommend it or vouch for its licenses, insurance, quality, safety or conduct.
• Your dealings with a business are between you and that business. Any purchase, appointment, contract, payment, warranty or dispute is solely between you and the business. We aren’t responsible for a business’s products, services, prices, conduct or failure to perform.
• Professional services. Listings for lawyers, doctors, dentists, accountants and contractors are not referrals. Confirm any professional’s license with the state agency that issues it.

3. Reviews

Reviews belong to the people who write them. Reviews are posted by members of the public of their own free will. Each review is the reviewer’s own opinion, not ours. We don’t write, pay for, edit, verify or endorse reviews. As the host of reviews written by others, we are not the publisher or speaker of their content, and we are not responsible for what reviewers say or for any decision made based on a review.

Rules for reviewers. By posting a review, you confirm that:

1. It describes your own real, first-hand experience with that business.
2. You are not the owner, an employee, a relative or a competitor of the business, and you weren’t paid or given anything in exchange for it. If you have any connection to the business, say so in the first line of your review.
3. It is honest. Opinions are welcome, positive or negative; false statements presented as facts are not.
4. It contains no private information about anyone, such as phone numbers, home addresses, medical, financial or legal details.
5. It contains no hate speech, threats, harassment, obscene or sexually explicit material, or discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, disability or national origin.
6. It doesn’t violate anyone’s copyright, privacy or other rights, or any law.
7. It is about the business and its products or services, not unrelated topics, politics or advertising.
8. You post no more than one review per business, under your real name or a name you normally use.

You’re responsible for your review. You alone are legally responsible for what you post. If someone makes a legal claim because of your review, you agree to cover our costs as described in Section 8.

How we moderate. Reviews go live when posted. We may remove a review, or limit a reviewer’s access, if it breaks the rules above, if it’s about the wrong business, if it appears fake or duplicated, or if a court orders it removed. We apply these rules the same way to positive and negative reviews.

What we never do. We never remove, hide or reorder a review because it is negative, because a business disagrees with it, or because a business asks or pays us to. We never accept payment to post, remove or change reviews, and businesses can’t buy better ratings. Featured or paid placement never affects reviews or ratings.

Permission to display your review. You keep ownership of your review. You give us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual license to host, display, reproduce, format and distribute it on the site and in sharing the site (for example, a review quoted on our social media), and to use the name you posted under. This license ends for a review once it’s deleted from the site, except for copies already shared or kept in backups for a limited time.

Deleting your own review. Email hello@blackownedworld.com from the address you used when posting, name the business, and we’ll remove it within 7 days.

4. For business owners

You don’t have to claim a listing for it to appear. Claiming lets you confirm your details, respond to reviews and request changes directly.

Claiming your listing

1. On your listing, click Own this business? Claim it.
2. Give your name, email, phone and role, and upload one document showing you own or control the business: a business license, Secretary of State filing or IRS EIN letter. Cover any Social Security numbers before uploading.
3. To be labeled Verified Black-Owned, also confirm the business is at least 51% owned by Black individuals; we may ask for documents showing ownership.
4. We review claims, usually within 7 days, and email you the decision. We may reject a claim we can’t confirm.

By claiming, you confirm everything you send is true and that you’re authorized to act for the business. A false claim, or a false statement about ownership, lets us remove the listing’s labels or the listing itself, and may be reported to authorities. Ownership documents are kept privately and deleted 30 days after our decision, as our Privacy Policy explains.

Responding to reviews

Owners of claimed listings may post one public response to each review. Email hello@blackownedworld.com with the listing name, the reviewer’s name and date, and your response. We post it under the review as written, usually within 3 business days. Responses must follow the same rules as reviews, and must not:

• Reveal anything private about the reviewer, such as whether they’re a patient or client, details of their visit, or their contact information. Doctors, dentists, lawyers and accountants should be especially careful: confirming someone is your patient or client may break the confidentiality rules of your profession.
• Threaten, insult or accuse the reviewer of something you know is untrue.
• Offer the reviewer anything in exchange for changing or removing their review.

A calm, factual reply usually does more for your reputation than a dispute.

Disputing a review

If you believe a review breaks our review rules in Section 3, email hello@blackownedworld.com with the subject “Review dispute” and include:

1. The listing and the review (reviewer name and date)
2. Which rule it breaks, and why
3. Any evidence, such as proof the reviewer is a competitor or never visited

We review disputes within 7 business days. We may contact the reviewer, and we’ll tell you the outcome. If the review breaks a rule, we remove it; if not, it stays, and you’re welcome to post a response. We decide disputes using only our rules; we don’t decide who is right in a disagreement over facts or quality. For a review you believe is defamatory, see Section 5.

What business owners may not do

• Post reviews of your own business or a competitor’s, or have employees, relatives or anyone you pay do so
• Offer discounts, gifts or payment in exchange for reviews, or only ask happy customers to review
• Threaten, harass or sue reviewers in bad faith, or pressure them to remove honest reviews
• Submit false information about your business or its ownership

We may remove reviews, labels or a listing, or mark a listing as having broken these rules, if a business does any of these things.

Corrections and removal

Anyone can report wrong information using Report a problem on a listing or our Corrections & Removals page. Owners may ask us to remove their listing entirely; we’ll do so within 7 days of confirming the request comes from the business. Removing a listing removes its reviews from view, so a business can’t use removal and relisting to clear its reviews.

Business owner accounts

Owners of claimed listings may get an account to manage their listing. You’re responsible for keeping your login private and for everything done under your account. Use one account per person; don’t share it. Tell us right away at hello@blackownedworld.com if you think someone else has used it. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, and you may close yours at any time by emailing us.

Featured placement and other paid services

We may offer paid services such as Featured placement, sponsored newsletter or text placements, display advertising and customer leads. Paid placements are labeled as paid or sponsored so visitors can tell. Paid services never change a listing’s reviews, ratings or verification label.

• Payment. We send an invoice or payment link through Stripe or PayPal. Placement starts after payment clears. Prices don’t include taxes, which you pay where they apply.
• Term and renewal. Each placement runs for the period on your invoice and ends on its own unless you pay for another period. We’ll remind you before it ends.
• Refunds. Payments are non-refundable once a placement starts, except that if we end it early for a reason that isn’t your fault, we’ll refund the unused part.
• No guaranteed results. We don’t promise any number of views, calls, leads or sales.
• Your ad content. Anything you give us to publish (text, images, logos, offers) must be true, legal and yours to use, and we may decline or remove it. You’re responsible for honoring offers you advertise.
• Leads. Customer information we provide as a lead may be used only to respond to that customer’s request, in line with all laws on calls, texts and emails. Don’t resell it.

5. Legal complaints and requests

Send all legal notices to hello@blackownedworld.com with a subject line saying what the notice is (“Defamation complaint,” “Copyright notice,” “Legal request”).

Claims that a review is defamatory. Reviews are the words of the people who wrote them, and claims about a review belong between you and the reviewer. We don’t decide whether a statement is defamatory. We’ll remove a review if it breaks our review rules (Section 3) or if you send a court order that names the content and finds it unlawful. Send the order and the address of the review. We don’t give out reviewers’ personal information except as required by a valid subpoena or court order.

Copyright complaints (DMCA). If you believe content on the site copies your work without permission, send our copyright agent a notice with:

1. Your physical or electronic signature
2. A description of the copyrighted work
3. The address of the page where it appears on our site
4. Your name, address, phone number and email
5. A statement that you believe in good faith the use isn’t authorized by the owner, its agent or the law
6. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorized to act for the owner

Copyright agent: Black Stamped LLC, hello@blackownedworld.com. If we remove your content after a notice and you believe that was a mistake, you may send a counter-notice with the information the law requires. We’ll end access for people who repeatedly infringe others’ copyrights.

Law enforcement and legal process. We respond to valid subpoenas, court orders and legal process as the law requires. Where the law allows, we’ll tell affected users before sharing their information.

6. Calls, texts, emails, chat and ads

Some listings show a phone number provided by our call tracking service instead of the business’s own number. Calls to it are forwarded to the business, and the service records call details (your number, the time, the length and which business you called) so we can measure how many customers we send each business.

• Callers: by calling a tracking number, you agree to this. Calls to medical and financial businesses (such as doctors, dentists and accountants) are never recorded. Calls to other businesses may be recorded; if a call is recorded, you’ll hear a notice at the start, and staying on the line means you agree to the recording. Don’t share sensitive personal information on the call unless you’re comfortable doing so.
• Business owners: you agree that calls from our site may come through our tracking number and that we may share call counts and trends with you. Ask us anytime to show your own number instead. If you no longer want calls forwarded, tell us and we’ll stop within 7 days.
• Forwarding problems: we’re not responsible for missed, dropped or misrouted calls, or for outages of the phone network or our provider. If a number doesn’t work, use Report a problem on the listing.

Text messages. If you give us your mobile number and agree to texts, you agree to receive recurring automated marketing and informational texts from Black Owned World, such as deals, featured businesses and updates about your listing or claim. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to cancel at any time; we’ll confirm with one final text. Reply HELP for help, or email hello@blackownedworld.com. Agreeing to texts is never required to use the site or buy anything. Carriers aren’t liable for delayed or undelivered messages. Only give a number you own or are allowed to use, and tell us if you give it up. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your number; we never sell or share it for others’ marketing.

Emails. If you sign up for our newsletter, you agree to receive newsletters, deals and sponsored messages. Sponsored content is labeled. Use the unsubscribe link in any email to stop.

Chat. The chat window on our site may be answered by an automated AI assistant, a person, or both. Automated answers can be wrong or out of date. Check important details directly with the business, and don’t share sensitive personal, medical or financial information in chat.

Ads on our site. Our pages may show ads from other companies and ad networks. An ad doesn’t mean we endorse the advertiser, and we’re not responsible for advertisers’ products, offers or websites.

7. Using the site fairly, and who owns what

You may not:

• Copy, scrape, crawl or download the directory or its listings in bulk, by any automated means, without our written permission
• Use any content from the site to train, fine-tune or build artificial intelligence or machine-learning models, or to build a competing directory or database
• Submit false businesses, false claims or someone else’s information
• Impersonate any person or business, or misstate your connection to one
• Post spam, advertising or links to other sites in reviews or forms
• Upload viruses or harmful code, or try to break into, overload or disrupt the site
• Get around any limit we put on reviews, accounts or access
• Use the site for anything illegal, or to harass, threaten or discriminate against anyone

What we own. The site’s design, text we write, logos, the name Black Owned World, and the directory as a whole (how listings are selected, organized and presented) belong to us and are protected by law. You may view the site and share links to it for personal, non-commercial use. Anything else needs our written permission.

What you own. You keep ownership of reviews and information you submit, subject to the license in Section 3. By submitting business information or photos, you confirm you have the right to share them and give us the same license to display them.

Business names and logos belong to their owners. Showing them in a listing doesn’t mean the business sponsors or endorses us.

Feedback. If you send us ideas or suggestions, we may use them freely without paying you.

8. Disclaimers, limits on our liability, and your responsibility

No warranties. THE SITE AND EVERYTHING ON IT ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DON’T PROMISE THE SITE WILL BE ERROR-FREE, SECURE OR ALWAYS AVAILABLE, OR THAT ANY LISTING, LABEL OR REVIEW IS ACCURATE OR CURRENT.

Limits on our liability. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, BLACK OWNED WORLD AND BLACK STAMPED LLC, AND OUR OWNERS, CONTRACTORS AND PARTNERS, WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA OR GOODWILL, ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SITE, ANY LISTING OR REVIEW, ANY BUSINESS LISTED, ANY CALL OR TRANSACTION WITH A BUSINESS, OR CONTENT POSTED BY OTHERS, EVEN IF WE WERE TOLD SUCH DAMAGES WERE POSSIBLE. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATED TO THE SITE IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF $100 OR THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM.

Some states don’t allow certain warranty exclusions or liability limits, so some of the above may not apply to you. In that case, our liability is limited to the smallest amount the law allows.

Your responsibility to us (indemnification). You agree to defend and repay Black Owned World, Black Stamped LLC and our owners and contractors for any claims, losses, damages, fines and costs (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) that come from: your reviews, responses or anything else you submit; your claim of a listing or any information you provide about a business; your breaking these terms or any law; or your dealings with any business or user. We’ll tell you about any such claim and may choose to control the defense ourselves.

9. Resolving disputes with us

Talk to us first. Before filing any claim against us, email hello@blackownedworld.com with the subject “Dispute,” describing the problem and what you want. We’ll try in good faith to resolve it within 60 days. Neither side may start a case until then.

Binding arbitration. If we can’t resolve it, any dispute between you and us about the site or these terms will be decided by binding individual arbitration under the Consumer Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association, not in court. Arbitration may be held by video or phone. Either of us may instead bring an individual claim in small claims court if it qualifies. Either of us may also ask a court to stop infringement of intellectual property or misuse of the site.

No class actions. You and we each agree to bring claims only individually, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, group or representative action. If this paragraph is found unenforceable for a claim, that claim goes to court, not arbitration.

Opting out of arbitration. You can opt out of arbitration within 30 days of first agreeing to these terms by emailing hello@blackownedworld.com with the subject “Arbitration opt-out” and your name.

Governing law and courts. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas and applicable federal law, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Any case not subject to arbitration will be heard only in the state or federal courts located in Tarrant County, Texas, and you and we agree to those courts’ jurisdiction.

Time limit. Any claim must be filed within one year after it arises, or it is permanently barred, unless the law requires a longer period.

10. General terms

• Ending access. We may suspend or end anyone’s access to the site, remove content, or refuse a listing or claim at any time, for breaking these terms or to protect users, businesses or the site. Sections 3 (license to display reviews), 7, 8 and 9 continue to apply after that.
• Changing the site. We may change, pause or stop any part of the site, including listings, reviews or Featured placement, at any time.
• Third-party services. The site relies on outside services such as Google and our call tracking provider. Their terms and privacy policies apply to how they handle your information.
• Entire agreement. These terms and our Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the site.
• Severability. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, that part is changed only as much as needed to make it enforceable, and the rest stays in effect.
• No waiver. If we don’t enforce a term right away, we can still enforce it later.
• Assignment. You can’t transfer your rights under these terms. We may transfer ours, for example if the site is sold.
• Events beyond our control. We’re not responsible for delays or failures caused by things outside our reasonable control, such as outages, natural disasters or actions of service providers.
• Notices. We may send you notices by email or by posting them on the site. Send notices to us by email.

Contact us

Email: hello@blackownedworld.com

Operator: Black Stamped LLC (doing business as Black Stamped Advertising), Texas. We operate online only and have no public office.