The Federal Trade Commission is pushing to explicitly ban fake reviews and other tactics that businesses exploit to receive favorable ratings for their products.
The US regulator proposed the new rule today to help it crack down on the shady marketing tactics, which can include buying positive reviews or trying to suppress negative reviews.
“The rule would trigger civil penalties for violators and should help level the playing field for honest companies,” said FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levine.
The proposed rules would also prohibit businesses from repurposing consumer reviews from one product for another. In addition, it would ban employees from posting positive ratings for their own company’s products without clear disclosure.
In introducing the new proposal, the FTC cites the rise of AI chatbots, and how they could make it easier for anyone to flood the market with fake reviews. Another restriction would bar a business from “controlling a website that claims to provide independent opinions about a category of products or services that includes its own products or services.”
Posting fake reviews or buying favorable ratings is already illegal under FTC rules, but not explicitly. Instead, the Commission has cracked down on offenders, citing them for engaging in unfair or deceptive trade acts.
However, a Supreme Court ruling from 2021 made it harder for the FTC to return ill-gotten gains to consumers through unfair or deceptive trade practices. As a result, the US regulator now wants to implement a clear rule banning fake reviews. Doing so could “increase deterrence against these practices in the first instance and will allow the Commission to seek civil penalties against the violators and more readily obtain monetary redress for their victims,” the FTC said in a 100-page document about the new rules.
The FTC will seek public comments on the proposed rules before considering amendments. “After the Commission reviews the comments received, it will decide whether to take the necessary next steps toward issuing a final rule,” it added.