FTC orders Sitejabber to stop faking product reviews

The Federal Trade Commission has charged Sitejabber, an online review platform, with violating its new false review rules by using point-of-sale reviews to misrepresent what customers think of products. In one of its first enforcement actions under new rules that prohibit companies from making or selling fake reviews, the FTC is ordering the company to stop.

The FTC alleges that Sitejabber “deceptively” compiled review statistics for businesses by including responses to marketing questionnaires that ask customers to rate and review their shopping experience, before they receive any products or services. It also says that by giving its customers the tools to publish that feedback on their sites, Sitejabber has enabled them to mislead people into thinking that ratings and reviews are based on actual experience with what the companies are selling.

The FTC now prohibits Sitejabber from “misrepresenting, or assisting anyone else in misrepresenting” that such reviews are based on customer experiences with a product or service. The company is also prohibited from helping other companies misrepresent reviews that it “collects, rates, or displays.”

The regulator’s new anti-fake review rules, which came into force last month, aim to tackle AI-generated reviews online, including on Amazon and other e-commerce sites. The FTC prohibits a number of deceptive practices, such as offering incentives to leave feedback or creating a fake review website that appears to be independent but is owned by the same company that makes the product reviews. Or at least, it will be for the next few months, after which the next US President will be sworn in and (probably) assume his leadership position – and we’ll see what happens next.