The FTC orders Sitejabber to stop faking product reviews

The Federal Trade Commission has charged Sitejabber, an online reappraisal platform, pinch violating its caller clone reviews rules by utilizing point-of-sale reviews to misrepresent what customers deliberation astir products. In 1 of its first enforcement actions nether new rules banning companies from making aliases trading clone reviews, the FTC is ordering the institution to stop.

The FTC says Sitejabber “deceptively” punched up businesses’ reappraisal counts by incorporating responses to point-of-sale questionnaires asking customers to complaint and reappraisal their shopping experience, earlier they’d really gotten immoderate products aliases services. It besides alleges that by giving its clients devices to people that feedback connected their ain sites, Sitejabber enabled them to mislead group to deliberation the ratings and reviews were based connected existent acquisition pinch what the companies were selling.

The FTC now forbids Sitejabber from “misrepresenting, aliases assisting anyone other successful misrepresenting” that specified reviews are based connected customer acquisition pinch a merchandise aliases service. The institution is besides barred from helping different companies misrepresent the reviews that “it collects, moderates, aliases displays.”

The regulator’s caller anti-fake reappraisal rules, which went into effect last month, purpose to reside AI-generated reviews online, including connected Amazon and different e-commerce sites. The FTC prohibits a swath of deceptive practices, specified arsenic offering incentives to time off feedback aliases creating a clone reappraisal website that seems independent but is really owned by the very institution that makes the products being reviewed. Or astatine least, it will for the adjacent mates of months, aft which the adjacent US President will beryllium sworn successful and (probably) switch its activity — and we’ll spot what happens next.