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COFFEEGEEK

Terms & Condtions

The rules and limitations of using this website.

The Legalese

Terms and Conditions

CoffeeGeek.com has three main goals with this website: to educate the coffee and espresso loving public; to keep our readers abreast of the newest techniques and equipment for making better coffee and espresso; and to entertain and inform as best as we can. We strive for the highest levels of quality and integrity within this website and we encourage open, honest, frank, and above all else, respectful participation and communication between all our fellow CoffeeGeek members.

We also make a solemn promise to you, one we’ve kept since launching this website in 2001: We will never falsely promote or endorse a product in our published reviews, nor will we accept payment of any kind to do so.

Affiliate Programs and Commission Generating Links

For the first ten years of CoffeeGeek’s existence, we did not use any type of affiliate link, commission link or income generating link when pointing you to products and their sales points around the Internet. In 2011, we started a pilot project using Amazon Affiliate links only on products we paid for and obtained, in order to recoup the cost of those products.

In 2014, we modified this policy to include products either a) purchased by CoffeeGeek or b) supplied by the manufacturer.

For all other products we reviewed, our links went back to the product supplier, with no commission or affiliate income applied. This policy stayed in place until 2024, and helped us maintain a perception (and reality) of unbiased content.

In the meantime, the use of a wide variety of exclusive commission-generating links has become the norm for almost every influencer website, Instagram, TikTok and Youtube account covering coffee and espresso. CoffeeGeek was the lone hold out on this policy of any major website or Influencer channel. We continued to avoid this practice to maintain our platform’s unbiased history and nature in product reviews.

That said, with the changing nature of the internet, and how traditional (ie banners, etc) advertising on websites is generating less and less operating income for websites like ours, we made a new change in 2024 to this policy. We launched a pilot program to work with select manufacturers to do direct commission links for products we review and write about. The first two companies are Lelit, and SharkNinja, and there may be more in 2025.

We’ve set new ethics rules for this pilot program. They include:

  • We make it clear, in writing, that manufacturers in our commission link program have no say, influence or participation in any of the reviews we write or the process they entail. This is restated with every single product received and reviewed.
  • Commission links have no bearing on, or guarantee of a positive review.
  • We will only work with manufacturers for commission links. We will not extend this program to third party vendors.
  • When a vendor supplies us with a product for review, they still get the lead “where to buy” links in our content and in the structure of the review pages exclusively for one year. After one year, we will update the content with links to Amazon and/or manufacturer commission-generating links, where applicable.

Your trust in our content, and our expressed opinions on products and services in the specialty coffee industry is of paramount importance to us; as we move forward with this new policy, rest assured that the limited use of commission links will never influence in a falsely positive way anything we write and cover. We will also be very clear about which links are commission generating links, and point you back to this page for reference on the policy.

Community Rules and Conditions

CoffeeGeek, for nearly 9/10ths of its lifetime, had a very vibrant and encompassing community, so a lot of these terms and conditions apply to that era. We are leaving them here because our hope is to introduce new community features beyond the comments system we’re operating (as of 2023). 

Open and honest discussion, participation and reviews are important to us, and help to inform people and generate better understanding for other readers and contributors; Regardless of your age, sex, race, or expertise, you have something to contribute and we want to hear it. Given our open environment, we can and will not tolerate any known acts that will serve to offend any reader based on their age, sex, race, or expertise level. Further, any illegal activities, such as the posting of copyrighted content, are expressly forbidden.

With this stated, CoffeeGeek.com and M.Prince Photography Ltd., (the parent company of CoffeeGeek.com) cannot review all content posted by viewers on the Web site, and we are not responsible for such content. However, we do reserve the right to delete or edit any reviews or other postings that are not, in our sole discretion, in the spirit of these basic outline values. We will monitor posting activity of anyone who violates the following guidelines and, if necessary, restrict their ability to post reviews, commentary, or messages on the site.

Our basic guidelines for participation within this website are as follows:

  • No insults or personal attacks against anyone.
  • No profanity or obscene language.
  • Any illegal content, such as hate literature and copyrighted material is expressly forbidden.
  • Feel free to debate what others say in their reviews, but keep the full fledged arguments and vitriol somewhere else.
  • Blatant commercial advertising within the content of this website not previously authorized by CoffeeGeek.com is strictly forbidden.

Additionally, we have a set of review guidelines we ask you to follow:

  • Please write reviews for products you own, and avoid single line responses – details really do matter.
  • Provide comparisons you might have with other products similar to this one you are reviewing.
  • Be realistic with your ratings, and remember that others will be using your review to make purchase decisions.
  • One Review per product.
  • Outrageous or suspicious reviews, if detected, will be verified by email, and deleted if necessary.
  • Commercial advertising within the product reviews not previously authorized by CoffeeGeek.com will be deleted.
  • Please check spelling and avoid controversial language.

*Required fields really are required. Your review cannot be submitted without them.
We encourage CoffeeGeek.com Consumer Review contributors to help support these community guidelines. This website was created for you, so please help us maintain it as a valuable resource that everyone can use, enjoy and learn from.

License Grant

CoffeeGeek.com and M.Prince Photography Ltd., respects the rights and copyrights of review authors and content contributors and will not take permanent possession of copyright over our review authors’ words.

With that said, when any content is posted to the CoffeeGeek.com website, the content author is automatically granting CoffeeGeek.com and M.Prince Photography Ltd., a license for use. By contributing or submitting product reviews, message board postings, product photographs, or any other content, you automatically grant (or warrant that the owner of such rights has expressly granted) us royalty-free and exclusive worldwide right and license to use, copy, modify, adapt, and or publish your words into any form, medium or technology without compensation to you, for use within the CoffeeGeek.com domain, or for promotion of said domain.

If at anytime you wish to withdraw this grant, you may do so by contacting us with reference to the URL hosting your content. CoffeeGeek.com will review and delete the content if the claim is valid, and release you from any grant.

CoffeeGeek.com and M.Prince Photography Ltd., respect the intellectual property of others, and we ask that our users do the same. If you believe that your work has been copied, and is accessible on the CoffeeGeek.com web site in a way that constitutes copyright infringement or does not fall under the FAIR USE laws in Canada, we ask you to notify us and we will take the appropriate action.