Fake reviews are BANNED! The FTC is cracking down hard on fake reviews and misleading business practices. In this week’s Local Search Tuesdays I dive into what is no longer allowed by the law and what these crackdowns mean for the future of business reviews.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Welcome back to another episode of Local Search Tuesdays. This week, I’m sharing some news about new review laws from the FTC.
Fake reviews have been a problem for as long as reviews have been around. Google has a list of review guidelines, but enforcement of the guidelines has been a mixed bag.
A few weeks ago, the Federal Trade Commission announced new laws that are designed to fight fake and misleading reviews. According to FTC Chair Lina Khan, “fake reviews not only waste people’s time and money, but also pollute the marketplace and divert business away from honest competitors.” She went on to say that the new FTC rules will “protect Americans from getting cheated, put businesses that unlawfully game the system on notice, and promote markets that are fair, honest, and competitive”
Have y’all ever noticed that whenever I do quotes, my voice is always the same?
We’ll have to see how strict the enforcement of the new rules will be, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. You might remember that they made an announcement last summer about the proposed rule change… This is the final release of the updated rules around fake reviews.
It’s important to note: This covers testimonials as well, so it’s not just third party reviews.
You can go read the full news release from the FTC at bit.ly/ftc-fake-review-ban
The final update rule includes the following:
Fake reviews and testimonials are banned.
This part covers any reviews written by AI, any reviews written by someone who didn’t have an actual experience with the business or its products or services, or reviews that misrepresent the person’s experience. It also makes it illegal to buy fake reviews or get reviews from company insiders, and to share fake reviews when the business knows – or should have known – that the reviews were fake.
Buying positive or negative reviews is now banned.
It’s officially against the law to compensate or offer incentives for positive or negative reviews. It even says that the compensation or incentive is against the law even if it’s implicitly conveyed.
Insider reviews are officially banned.
Any reviews written by company employees that don’t explicitly state that they’re written by company employees are illegal. It’s also illegal to share reviews written by employees, since the business should know that employees wrote the reviews. It also bans reviews written by relatives of employees that don’t explicity state that relationship in the review.
Company-controlled review sites are also banned.
This covers separate review or testimonial sites that are owned by a company if the site doesn’t explicitly state that it’s owned by the company.
Review suppression is banned.
It’s now illegal to use unfounded or groundless legal threats, physical threats, intimidation, or public accusations to prevent or remove a negative review. It’s also illegal to display a reviews section on your website that only shows positive reviews.
And interestingly enough, misuse of fake social media indicators is banned.
Buying fake followers, fake likes, or even fake views is now illegal, and it’s also illegal to sell fake followers, likes, or views.
The FTC has noted in the past that case-by-case enforcement without legal penalty hasn’t been enough to deter businesses from clearly deceptive review practices. These new updates will give the FTC more power to enforce the laws around fake reviews, hopefully making it harder for businesses to cheat moving forward.
That’s all the time we’ve got left for this week’s episode, so you know what that means.
Put your hand on the screen right here:
We totally just high-fived ‘cause you learned something awesome.
Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you again next week for another episode of Local Search Tuesdays.
