Amazon UK commits to working harder to tackle fake reviews
The retail giant has committed to 'robust processes' to quickly detect and remove fake reviews alongside sanctions for rogue sellers and businesses as part of work by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to curb the customer hazard.
Amazon has also promised to tackle concerns around 'catalogue abuse', where sellers hijack the reviews of well-performing products and add them to an entirely separate and different product in order to falsely boost the star rating.
In practice, this could mean a consumer thinks they have found a pair of five-star headphones when the majority of reviews are for an unrelated item.
Amazon has agreed to sanction businesses that boost their star ratings via bogus reviews or catalogue abuse, including bans from selling on the website.
Sanctions will also be applied to users who post fake reviews, who could be banned from posting reviews altogether.
The site has also promised to provide clear and robust mechanisms to allow consumers and businesses to report fake reviews and catalogue abuse quickly and easily.
The undertakings relate to the reviews, review counts and star ratings for products visible to consumers when searching Amazon's UK online store.
They follow an investigation by the CMA into Amazon over concerns that the company was breaching consumer law by failing to take adequate action to protect people from fake reviews – including not doing enough to detect and remove fake reviews, act on suspicious patterns of behaviour, or properly sanction reviewers and businesses taking part in fake review activity.
The CMA estimates that around 90% of consumers use reviews when making purchasing decisions, and that as much as £23 billion of UK consumer spending is potentially influenced by online reviews annually.
Fake reviews are now explicitly banned under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA).
Amazon's undertakings follow Google changing its processes for tackling fake reviews, including sanctions for repeat offenders, in January.
CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said: 'So many people use Amazon, from buying a new bike lock to finding the best coffee machine – and what's clear is that star ratings and reviews have a huge impact on their choices.
'That's why these new commitments matter and help set the standard. They mean people can make decisions with greater confidence – knowing that those who seek to pull the wool over their eyes will be swiftly dealt with.'
The CMA will now scrutinise whether review platforms, businesses who list products on them, and reviewers themselves, are complying with the strengthened laws around fake reviews.
An Amazon spokesman said: 'We invest significant resources to pro-actively stop fake reviews ever appearing on our store, including on expert human investigators and machine learning models that analyse thousands of data points to detect risk.
'Last year we pro-actively blocked more than 275 million fake reviews, with more than 99% of all products in our store containing only authentic reviews.
'We also suspend, ban and take legal action against those who violate our policies and have teams dedicated to taking action against bad actors that attempt to solicit fake reviews for products.'
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