The influence that online reviews have on our choices, in fact, goes well beyond the world of online shopping: whether they’re buying a product from an e-commerce site or choosing a restaurant for Friday night dinner, most people will check online reviews more or less carefully before finalizing their choice.
The weight of online reviews in buyers’ choices is also influenced by another factor: we tend to consider reviews as reliable . These are, after all, opinions given by consumers who have tried the product or service before us, online or in person, and they are shared without ulterior motives on the platforms that the web provides.
Unfortunately, however, this isn’t always the case: sellers, companies, and entrepreneurs have long realized the impact online reviews have on their reputations and on consumer choices. As a result, numerous sellers, not entirely honest, have used the review system to their advantage, orchestrating schemes to publish highly positive reviews of their products or services… which are entirely false .
The phenomenon is so widespread that it can alter market dynamics, so much so that it requires the intervention of national and European bodies to offer consumer protection .
But what are these protections? Are they truly effective? Let’s analyze the entire phenomenon and try to find an answer together.
Protection by the platforms themselves
Review aggregators
Major review aggregators (platforms like Trustpilot and Yelp) were the first to recognize the existence and scale of the fake review phenomenon . The success of these platforms is closely tied to their trustworthiness; to offer the best possible service to consumers, sites like Trustpilot and Yelp therefore immediately implemented strategies to prevent businesses and professionals from publishing or allowing others to publish fake reviews .
The most widely used system is based on the IP addresses of users who post reviews. After a consumer posts a review for a business, if they try to post another review for the same business from the same IP address —even if they use a different account—the review is removed .
This is only a partially effective protection system: nothing prevents an entrepreneur, for example, from offering compensation to individuals who, each with their own account and IP address, can freely post a review each, without leaving the consumer any possibility of distinguishing authentic reviews from completely fake ones .
Another protection offered by sites like Yelp is the Red Flag system , which alerts consumers to suspicious reviews. Whether a review is considered suspicious or not depends on several parameters automatically identified by algorithms: the geographic location of the services reviewed, the number of reviews written on the same day, the presence of previous reports on the same business, and so on.
When a review is considered suspicious, it is flagged with a Red Flag (a red symbol). The flagged review does not count towards the business’s average satisfaction rating, but remains there so that consumers are aware that the business in question may have used fake reviews and can evaluate the product’s service and other reviews with this knowledge.
E-commerce
E-commerce of all types (from large online stores to restaurant table reservation apps) rely on a review system .
On these platforms, posting fake reviews is more difficult, although unfortunately—as we’ll see—not impossible. On these sites, only those who actually purchase a product or service can access the section of the website or app that allows them to post reviews or express their satisfaction with a rating. This makes it impossible to post unlimited fake reviews to promote a product or service.
Despite this, even this type of system cannot be considered 100% reliable: the most dishonest sellers offer compensation to third-party users to purchase products through their accounts and then post a positive review. As we’re about to discover, consumer associations have had to intervene to curb this phenomenon.
The intervention of the AGCM
An initial attempt to curb the practice of fake reviews was launched by the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) following countless complaints from consumers. The authority ruled in 2018/1 in a specific case involving a popular travel website that allows users to book hotels and uses, like all other websites, a review system.
The proceedings initiated by the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) placed the responsibility for the unfair activity on the platform itself, as, according to the ruling, it was guilty of managing a review system that allowed for unfair commercial practices and violating provisions of the Consumer Code. These considerations were based, in particular, on two factors:
- The site does not verify the facts reported by users regarding the properties and is therefore aware that some of those reviews may be false;
- Despite this awareness, the website still published the reviews.
From a technical point of view, the AGCM considered that this commercial practice violated the current legislation because:
- constitutes an unfair commercial practice (Article 20 of Legislative Decree number 206 of 2005);
- a commercial practice that contains untrue information is considered misleading ;
- the commercial practice described induces or is likely to induce the consumer into error
This ruling, however, was overturned by the Lazio Regional Administrative Court (TAR), which upheld the appeal of the two companies that owned the website. The latter demonstrated that the website expressly warns users that the veracity of the reviews cannot be guaranteed in any way.
Although the Lazio Regional Administrative Court (TAR) absolved the website of liability for misleading commercial activity, this measure does not translate into consumer protection at all.
The Omnibus Directive
The legislature’s efforts to regulate the practice of using fake reviews have never stopped, and the latest measure even comes directly from the European Union: on 18 March 2023, the legislative decree (number 26 of 2023) implementing the European Directive on consumer protection : the so-called Omnibus Directive , was published in the Official Journal .
The Omnibus Directive aimed to standardize legislation on communications to consumers in the Member States and addressed two main points:
- indications of price reduction announcements during promotional campaigns;
- unfair commercial practices .
The most interesting development is that, since the implementation of the Omnibus Directive, the following have been considered unfair commercial practices:
- indicate that the reviews of a product or service are attributable to consumers who have actually purchased the product or service but have not taken steps to verify the reliability and authenticity of the reviews themselves;
- submit or instruct another person to write and publish false reviews to promote products or services.
The omnibus directive confirms the conclusion reached by the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM)—that platform owners are responsible for ensuring that product and service reviews are genuine—but adds liability to sellers who attempt to circumvent the guarantee systems implemented by platforms to promote their products or services.
Since the above-mentioned practices are considered unfair commercial practices, they become punishable by sanctions, and the Omnibus Directive also intervened on this issue by increasing the financial penalties for unfair commercial practices from 5 to 10 million euros .
The Omnibus Directive appears to finally implement effective measures for consumer protection as it requires platforms and websites to check the authenticity of reviews through internal measures – for example, ensuring that only those who can demonstrate having made a certain purchase or had a certain experience are authorized to publish reviews – and discourages sellers from making dishonest use of the review systems themselves.
The Omnibus Directive effectively makes the practice of false reviews illegal in Italy and in other Member States.
Conclusion
The phenomenon of fake reviews has posed a significant challenge to consumers in the digital age of online shopping. However, the protections put in place by review platforms and legislative regulations are finally addressing the problem more effectively. These measures not only require platforms to verify the authenticity of reviews , but also penalize sellers who attempt to manipulate the system . While there are still challenges in ensuring full consumer trust in online reviews, the new regulations represent an important step towards greater transparency and protection for shoppers.
