The Federal Commerce Fee banned companies from writing and shopping for their very own critiques in an August ruling. Now, it is alleging {that a} buyer assessment website, Sitejabber, printed “deceptive” scores and critiques on behalf of the 130,000 companies on its platform. The FTC’s proposed order would cease Sitejabber from “misrepresenting” buyer scores and critiques “sooner or later.”
The FTC’s grievance alleges that Sitejabber collected critiques on the level of sale, or earlier than prospects acquired or skilled a services or products. In a single instance, prospects have been requested to price their general procuring expertise out of 5 stars and write one thing rapidly instantly after testing.
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These fast scores and critiques, or Prompt Suggestions Survey outcomes, change into a part of a website’s profile on Sitejabber. The FTC says this might mislead individuals into pondering prior prospects rated a enterprise’s services or products extremely once they have been really simply ranking the procuring expertise.
“Presenting [Instant Feedback Survey] outcomes as post-fulfillment critiques and scores can mislead customers into believing {that a} enterprise’s excessive assessment depend and excessive ranking means 1000’s of shoppers have had constructive experiences with the enterprise’s services or products, when the truth is the scores and critiques displayed primarily mirrored solely prospects’ experiences procuring on the enterprise’s web sites,” web page 4 of the FTC grievance reads.
How one can Keep away from FTC Scrunity on Your Web site Critiques
Companies can keep away from FTC scrutiny by ensuring their Prompt Suggestions Survey scores and critiques are unentangled from their product scores and critiques — so prospects clearly know what’s being rated.
This is without doubt one of the FTC’s first enforcement actions underneath its new rule.
“Together with our rule on faux critiques and testimonials, instances like this one present that we’ll act to cease all types of deception within the assessment ecosystem.” FTC Bureau of Shopper Safety director Samuel Levine said.
The FTC’s earlier rule on faux critiques and testimonials stops companies from shopping for or promoting faux critiques, together with AI-generated ones.
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