Watchdog to probe fake reviews on Amazon and Google

The UK’S competition watchdog is to formally investigate whether Amazon and Google have broken consumer law by not doing enough to protect shoppers from fake reviews online.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) initially investigated websites last year, assessing whether they had sufficient systems for detecting and removing fake reviews. This raised concerns specifically about Amazon and Google.

Part of its new investigation will look at examples where “the same users have reviewed the same range of products or businesses at similar times to each other and there is no connection between those products or businesses”.

It will also examine reviews that suggest “the reviewer has received a payment or other incentive to write a positive review”.

The CMA said it could take “enforcement action” against Amazon and Google if it concluded they had broken the law. This could include securing commitments from the sites to change how they handle fake reviews, and may end up “escalating to court action if needed”.

It will also assess how to punish people who place repeated fake reviews, and deter them from doing so.

Andrea Coscelli, the CMA’S Chief Executive, said: “Our worry is that millions of online shoppers could be misled by reading fake reviews and then spending their money based on those recommendations.”

She added: “Equally, it’s not fair if some businesses can fake 5-star reviews to give their products or services the most prominence, while lawabiding businesses lose out.”

An Amazon spokesman said it devoted “significant resources to preventing fake or incentivised reviews from appearing in our store”.

However, last month it accused social-media companies of not doing enough to prevent fake reviews being sold on their sites (see Issue 609, page 8). Amazon said that in 2020 it removed 200 million fake reviews from its pages.