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 evaluation website, Sitejabber, revealed “deceptive” rankings and critiques on behalf of the 130,000 companies on its platform. The FTC’s proposed order would cease Sitejabber from “misrepresenting” buyer rankings and critiques “sooner or later.”
The FTC’s criticism alleges that Sitejabber collected critiques on the level of sale, or earlier than clients obtained or skilled a services or products. In a single instance, clients have been requested to price their total purchasing expertise out of 5 stars and write one thing shortly immediately after trying out.
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These fast rankings and critiques, or Prompt Suggestions Survey outcomes, change into a part of a website’s profile on Sitejabber. The FTC says this might mislead folks into considering prior clients rated a enterprise’s services or products extremely after they have been really simply score the purchasing expertise.
“Presenting [Instant Feedback Survey] outcomes as post-fulfillment critiques and rankings can mislead customers into believing {that a} enterprise’s excessive evaluation depend and excessive score means hundreds of consumers have had optimistic experiences with the enterprise’s services or products, when actually the rankings and critiques displayed primarily mirrored solely clients’ experiences purchasing on the enterprise’s web sites,” web page 4 of the FTC criticism reads.
How you can Keep away from FTC Scrunity on Your Web site Evaluations
Companies can keep away from FTC scrutiny by ensuring their Prompt Suggestions Survey rankings and critiques are unentangled from their product rankings and critiques — so clients clearly know what’s being rated.
This is likely one of the FTC’s first enforcement actions beneath 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 evaluation 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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