FTC Guide Featuring Online Customer Reviews: A Guide for Platforms
January 2022
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released a guide focused on online customer reviews, emphasizing the importance of ensuring that reviews accurately reflect consumers’ genuine experiences. The FTC’s guidance is aimed at businesses and platforms that host reviews, stressing that they should have clear processes in place to verify that reviews are legitimate and trustworthy. The guide recognizes that different types of platforms, such as online retailers, hotel review sites, and app stores, may require distinct approaches to collecting, moderating, and publishing reviews.
The FTC underscored that regardless of the platform’s business model, companies should be transparent about how they handle reviews. This transparency is key to building consumer trust and avoiding deceptive practices that could violate Section 5 of the FTC Act. While the guidance does not list specific charges, it emphasizes the responsibility of companies to avoid practices that mislead consumers, such as publishing fake reviews or failing to disclose incentivized reviews.
For more information, see here: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/featuring-online-customer-reviews-guide-platforms
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