Contesting a verdict

Automated systems make mistakes. AVA is no exception. If you're the owner or representative of an entity we've flagged and you believe the verdict is incorrect, we want you to tell us.

Who can contest

Anyone. You don't need an AVA account or a paid plan. Submissions from the registered owner of the entity, the legal operator of the business, or an authorised representative (a web agency, a law firm) carry extra weight because we can verify the claim more easily. You can also submit as an affected third party when a verdict is causing you demonstrable harm.

How to submit

Every AVA verdict permalink page has a "Contest this verdict" button. That button opens a short form at /contest?verdict_id=... where you provide a reply-to email, your relationship to the entity, a description of what you believe is wrong, and any supporting evidence.

Submissions are recorded against the specific verdict ID, not just the entity value. That means if we re-check the entity and the verdict changes before your submission is reviewed, the reviewer still sees the exact verdict you objected to.

The timeline

Our notice-and-takedown procedure lays out the full review flow. In short: every submission is acknowledged, reviewed, and responded to. We aim to do all three in a reasonable time, and we tell you if a complex case is going to take longer than expected.

Dedicated turnaround commitments are available to enterprise customers as part of their contract terms. For everyone else, we work to reply as promptly as we reasonably can.

The three outcomes

Upheld: we agree the verdict was wrong. The entity is re-checked, the verdict page is replaced with the corrected result, and we send you the new summary.

Partially upheld: we agree with part of your claim. Some signals are adjusted, the score may move, and an analyst note is recorded against the verdict.

Maintained: we disagree. We reply with the evidence we relied on, at the category level, and point you at the next escalation step. A senior analyst not involved in the original review will take a second look if you reply to that email.

What we won't overturn

A verdict being commercially inconvenient is not, by itself, grounds for overturning it. Neither is being previously rated safe elsewhere, or having registered your domain last week. We also won't tell you the specific thresholds, plugin names, or weights behind a verdict. Concrete evidence of the entity's actual behaviour is what moves the needle.

Legal demands

If you're serving a DMCA notice, GDPR erasure request, or other formal legal demand, email <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> instead of using the contestation form. Legal requests go on a separate track with identity verification.

The philosophy

We don't build AVA by scraping data and hoping. Every signal has a source, every score has an audit trail, and every verdict is contestable. That's the bar we hold ourselves to, and the contestation process is how we stay honest when we get it wrong.