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FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#31

Post by irrational »

Waterluvian wrote: post #7

Random thought: before the Internet were reviews any better? I know there were/are quality reviews like Consumer Reports and such. But were there any crowdsourced reviews? Are we worse off or are we just needing to protect people from their inability to scrutinize a new source of bad data?

Before the Internet? Other than advertisements, any information about a product came from word of mouth (family and friends) or from magazines like Consumer Reports. How would crowdsourced reviews even be generated or disseminated? The only way for large groups of people to talk to each other was in person.

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#32

Post by mkhpalm »

ekianjo wrote: post #16
beebmam wrote: post #12

There's a whole fraud economy that has emerged in the last decade or so. Its existence has done deep harm to social trust, in my opinion. It extends far beyond just fake reviews of course; it reaches deep into the corrupt business practices and politicians/governments around the world.

How do you know reviews were more reliable before ? In pretty much all industries people were hacking reviews before especially when channels were more limited. Nobody invented fraud yesterday.

One example I can remember from 10+ years ago was newegg. I don't recall ever really feeling like I got "duped" based on the many online reviews there. I think that sentiment was pretty well revered and not just my personal opinions of it. Everything was pretty well spot on from my experiences. That said, I have no idea how that would fair these days.

I'll even go so far as to say back when Amazon was getting started their reviews were a lot more reliable as well.

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#33

Post by dmalik »

> “Advertisers will pay a price if they engage in these deceptive practices.”

> These include, but are not limited to: falsely claiming an endorsement by a third party; misrepresenting whether an endorser is an actual, current, or recent user; using an endorsement to make deceptive performance claims; failing to disclose an unexpected material connection with an endorser; and misrepresenting that the experience of endorsers represents consumers’ typical or ordinary experience.

Is the notice here you just can't advertise the fake reviews? Nothing on actually trying to curtail the fake reviews that show up on commerce sites?

Genuinely curious if commerce sites will need to start policing reviews.

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#35

Post by paul7986 »

beebmam wrote: post #12

There's a whole fraud economy that has emerged in the last decade or so. Its existence has done deep harm to social trust, in my opinion. It extends far beyond just fake reviews of course; it reaches deep into the corrupt business practices and politicians/governments around the world.

Don't forget all media especially political and world news media!

Zero trust in any of those reality TV outlets.

I mean there are tons of resources and sites now to fact check the media (whether that's the media themselves like USA Today's fact checking section to non-profits), which is ridiculous if such resources are needed to constantly check what's true or not. Thus, i've tuned out and not a fan of people who plug themselves into their media machine of choice and live/die by it. They do not think for themselves rather their idiot media machine controls them!

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#36

Post by zz865 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #7

Random thought: before the Internet were reviews any better? I know there were/are quality reviews like Consumer Reports and such. But were there any crowdsourced reviews? Are we worse off or are we just needing to protect people from their inability to scrutinize a new source of bad data?

I think the point is you didn't rely on reviews. Before the internet you went to the shop and you could actually touch the product, try on clothes, use sporting goods, see how this laptop feels and how fast it works. Now buying online you have to trust reviews to choose what to buy.

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#37

Post by jrochkind1 »

dmalik wrote: post #33

> “Advertisers will pay a price if they engage in these deceptive practices.” > These include, but are not limited to: falsely claiming an endorsement by a third party; misrepresenting whether an endorser is an actual, current, or recent user; using an endorsement to make deceptive performance claims; failing to disclose an unexpected material connection with an endorser; and misrepresenting that the experience of en…

You don't need to advertise to be "failing to disclose an unexpected material connection with an endorser", I think maybe they mean they could punish for the reviews themselves, but they're still talking about going after the companies with the products reviewed, not the commerce sites hosting the reviews. Which is what the the FTC does (as a drop in the ocean lately), maybe all they have statutory authority to do?

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#39

Post by tw04 »

mkhpalm wrote: post #32
ekianjo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know reviews were more reliable before ? In pretty much all industries people were hacking reviews before especially when channels were more limited. Nobody invented fraud yesterday.

One example I can remember from 10+ years ago was newegg. I don't recall ever really feeling like I got "duped" based on the many online reviews there. I think that sentiment was pretty well revered and not just my personal opinions of it. Everything was pretty well spot on from my experiences. That said, I have no idea how that would fair these days. I'll even go so far as to say back when Amazon was getting started…

I think you mean duped?

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#40

Post by fidesomnes »

beebmam wrote: post #12

There's a whole fraud economy that has emerged in the last decade or so. Its existence has done deep harm to social trust, in my opinion. It extends far beyond just fake reviews of course; it reaches deep into the corrupt business practices and politicians/governments around the world.

just wait until you see who the Justice Department classifies as white.
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