British market watchdog investigates fake reviews of online stores

The UK Competition and Markets Authority has announced that it will investigate fake reviews published online. The market watchdog wants to see whether consumers may have been misled when purchasing products.

The CMA has set out on its website what the investigation will look like. A number of major online stores are investigating how they detect and remove fake reviews. Incidentally, it was not stated which web stores it concerns, and the market watchdog also wants to emphasize that it has no indications that web shops are engaged in illegal activities in the field of customer reviews.

During the investigation, the CMA will look at suspicious users, for example those who have reviewed a large number of different products. It also looks at whether stores may have linked positive reviews to the wrong products, and the CMA wants to know how customers who are paid for writing a review are treated.

The intention is to see whether online stores are doing enough to tackle fake reviews. If the CMA believes they are doing too little, penalties such as fines may be handed out. The British market watchdog also says that Facebook, with its subsidiary Instagram, and Ebay have promised to tackle fake reviews.