Fake reviews have been a constant problem on Google, Amazon, Yelp, and other platforms where users leave feedback. It was always annoying for consumers to encounter such things, with bad actors consistently padding their numbers by reviewing themselves or offering incentives for others to leave them positive feedback, but these issues have only gotten worse in recent years. Rather than just spamming with inauthentic reviews from dishonest people, spammers have now flooded every single review site with hundreds of AI reviews. This issue has made many review networks unusable, and it has become such a significant problem that these fake reviews are now considered to infringe on consumer rights. Instead of dishonest reviews simply breaking the Terms of Service of whichever website they were hosted on, seeing only penalties levied by the domain itself, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has stepped in and turned these misleading practices into a full-blown legal issue.
On August 14, 2024, the FTC banned fake consumer reviews and testimonials, launching a significant new effort to address deceptive online marketing practices. This means that spammers are not just liable to face issues dealing with the review hosts themselves but also face genuine legal consequences for these practices. Spammers aren’t the only ones who need to watch themselves with this new FTC ruling, however, as any business that purchases these spammers’ services or even engages in smaller-scale deceptions themselves can also now be charged.
The FTC had previously discouraged such practices, but the new rule now strengthens FTC enforcement and prohibits businesses from:
While the new FTC ruling was announced in mid-August, it becomes effective 60 days after being officially published. This means that in October, we will see just how seriously the FTC enforces these new laws and if there are any notable bad actors they intend to take down right out of the gate.