Consumer Spotlight Series: Fake reviews (1) – submitting and commissioning

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Consumer Spotlight Series: Fake reviews (1) – submitting and commissioning

Consumer Spotlight Series: Fake reviews (1) – submitting and commissioning

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May 1, 2025

Whilst the Competition and Markets Authority (the CMA) has indicated that it will not investigate businesses for fake reviews before July 2025, businesses should take steps now to make sure they hit the ground running. Failure to comply with the new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (the DMCCA) provisions means that a business is at risk of being fined up to 10% of global turnover.

Overview

The DMCCA introduces a number of different practices in relation to consumer reviews that are automatically deemed to be unfair and unlawful. These practices cover the entire review supply chain, namely:

the submission and commissioning by traders of "banned reviews";
their publication by traders; and
their procurement by traders.

In the first of our "Fake Reviews" updates, we highlight what businesses need to know about submitting/commissioning "banned reviews" i.e. "fake reviews" and "concealed incentivised reviews". We will address banned practices concerning the publication and procurement of consumer reviews in a separate update.

"Our fake reviews enforcement strategy mirrors the new banned practice. We are looking across the fake reviews value chain and thinking about when and how to take enforcement action all across it. We are using the most up to date tech to help us to identify potential infringements at scale."

- Emma Cochrane, Acting Executive Director, Consumer Protection, Competition and Markets Authority

Types of banned reviews

There are two types of banned consumer reviews: "fake reviews" and "concealed incentivised reviews".

Fake Reviews – a fake review is a consumer review that purports to be, but is not, based on a genuine experience. It may:

be a positive or negative review;
take any number of forms e.g. text, speech or image (such as a star rating); and
be seen by consumers online or in analogue materials (such as marketing letters).

Concealed incentivised reviews – these are where:

the person receives:
- a monetary payment for commissioning the review (i.e. money or commissions); or
- receives some other form of incentive (such as discounts or vouchers, leases or loans free of charge or on more favourable terms than those offered to the public, free products or invitations to events);
this fact is not made apparent because e.g. the incentivisation is missing, obscure or hidden.

It is not unlawful to post an incentivised review, provided the review is clearly labelled as such, so that consumers are aware of this. Any such review must still reflect the reviewer's genuine experience (otherwise it would be a fake review).

What are the banned practices?

As noted above, the banned practices cover the entire customer review supply chain. This update covers the banned practice of submitting or commissioning a banned review.

Anyone who engages in the commercial practice of either submitting or commissioning banned reviews will be in breach of consumer law. This includes professional reviewers, journalists, content creators (such as bloggers, influencers, online streamers, celebrities, social media personalities), marketing companies, and individuals acting on behalf of traders.

Submitting a banned review means supplying it with a view to publication by a trader, or by the reviewer themselves.

Commissioning another person to submit or write/create banned reviews includes incentivising by any means.

It is also unlawful to:

offer to submit or commission banned reviews for traders, including acting as a broker (e.g. offering a search engine optimisation (SEO) service that includes the generation of fake reviews); or
offer services to traders for facilitation of the submission, or commissioning, of banned reviews, e.g. a service that bypasses a platform's, or website's, banned review detection measures.

Examples of banned reviews and practices

Making a video that claims to demonstrate the results of using a specific product, but in fact using a different product.
Posting a positive review about a product, which does not tell readers that the reviewer received the product for free unless they click on a link labelled "learn more" in the review.
Requesting a customer to give a review of a free or discounted product without explaining to that customer that they must clearly disclose the incentivisation.
Asking consumers to buy items on the basis that they will be reimbursed in exchange for a five-star review.
Buying reviews purporting to be written by individual consumers but which have been generated by software applications, such as bots.

Previous CMA consumer investigations

Prior to the DMCCA, the CMA investigated several cases involving fake reviews. These cases led to undertakings being given, for example, by:

an SEO and online marketing company to stop writing fake positive reviews for their clients and to remove the online fake reviews;
two SEO marketing companies to ensure that all advertising and other marketing in online articles and blogs was clearly labelled or identified so that it was distinguishable from the opinion of a journalist or blogger;
a marketing company not to post or arrange undisclosed advertising on social media and to clearly label paid-for content, after using social media personalities to promote products without disclosing that this was paid-for advertising;
trusted trader schemes and care home review sites to improve their online practices, including improved review verification processes and transparency in how reviews were collected, checked and presented.

What can businesses do to ensure compliance?

Do:

Encourage marketing staff and third parties, such as advertising or SEO agencies, to use appropriate language when collecting feedback on products/services by clearly stating there is no obligation to leave positive reviews and any form of incentivisation must be disclosed.
Create and publish a clear review moderation policy, building in appropriate checks of all reviews (positive and negative) before submission/publication.
Explain to site users the difference between leaving a review and making a complaint.
Put in place appropriate detection measures to identify banned reviews, including using automated software to spot anomalies or other patterns.
Promptly remove banned reviews.

Don't:

Pretend to be a customer and write reviews about your own products or services or other businesses' products/services.
Commission third parties to write fake reviews.
Offer incentives for positive reviews or collect reviews only from customers you know are satisfied (unless these are disclosed as testimonials).
Where there is an issue, dissuade customers from leaving a review including after an initial issue has been resolved.
Block reviews which the business does not like.
Attempt to persuade customers to submit a complaint instead of a review, or treat a negative review intended for publication as a complaint.
Conceal the fact that a review is incentivised.

Please contact a member of the Dentons team if you would like to discuss fake reviews or any of the other changes to UK consumer law.