Fake reviews on Amazon and Google are misleading their customers/shoppers. Fake reviews are probing into the issue of fake five star reviews on their apps on Playstore/App Store.
The Competition and Markets Authority is also worried that “honest and law-abiding” Amazon and Google businesses are reaped off their fair market chunk by fake reviews firms.
Amazon and Google could face court for breaching consumer law.
Both firms say they are looking into the matter and have resources and policies to check this issue.
The CMA has launched the formal probe process after a preliminary investigation that whether e commerce companies were precautious about protecting their consumer base.
“Our worry is that millions of online shoppers could be misled by reading fake reviews (on Amazon, Google and other e-commerce stores) and then spending their money based on those recommendations,” said CMA chief executive Andrea Coscelli.
“Equally, it’s simply not fair if some businesses can fake five-star reviews to give their products or services the most prominence, while law-abiding businesses lose out.” It’s important that these tech platforms take responsibility and we stand ready to take action if we find that they are not doing enough.”
Patterns of behavior arising concerns
Achilles’s Hill of all this the CMA probe was ; whether Amazon and Google are worried enough to “detect” and “prevent” fake reviews and kick the companies out of the business, involved in this practice.
Most common swindling practices are: same users reviweing the same range of products mutiple times…or writing a scam positive review where a consumer mentions false plus points or an incentive like , receiving payment or a discount etc.
CMA is actively looking on what sanctions Amazon and Google are putting upon their registered companies regarding reviews and how promptly they remove those reviews and possibly ; unregistering the companies.
The watchdog announced a formal enforcement action against breaching companies. This may include confirming formal commitments from Amazon and Google to change their dealing method with fake reviews companies (tighten them to be more precise)
CMA authorities have also said that: “The CMA has not reached a view on whether Amazon and Google have broken the law at this stage.” Director of policy and advocacy Rocio Concha asserted that CMA should now move quickly towards identifying law-breaking companies.
In his words : “This should prompt Amazon and Google to finally take the necessary steps to protect users from the growing tide of fake reviews on their platforms and, if they fail to do so, the regulator must be prepared to take strong enforcement action.”
