In our first "Fake Reviews" Consumer Spotlight, we outlined the steps businesses should take to comply with the Competition & Markets Authority's (the CMA's) new UK consumer enforcement powers under the Digital Market Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (the DMCCA) – in particular, those that apply to traders (and their service providers/agents) submitting or commissioning fake reviews for their own or a third-party website/platform. 

In this second "Fake Reviews" update, we highlight how traders – as well as third-party intermediaries/platforms – need to take proactive compliance steps to ensure that they do not fall foul of rules preventing publishing fake reviews, ahead of formal CMA enforcement action anticipated from July 2025.

All firms involved in "publishing" consumer reviews must take steps to comply

The CMA makes clear that "publishing" of consumer reviews and consumer review information is broadly defined, such that it covers a variety of media, such as platforms (e.g. search engines, online marketplaces and social media), specialist review sites and trader recommendation sites, as well as print forms.

It is therefore the responsibility of not just the trader, but of all parties involved in the publishing of a review, including websites hosting third-party reviews of third-party products (together the publishers), to ensure compliance with publishing rules – not just the main party involved in generating the review content. For example, "publishing" could include hosting consumer review information originally generated by a third-party platform (e.g. aggregated star ratings provided by a specialist review website) but incorporated into a trader's own website via an API.

Banned reviews and presenting genuine consumer experiences in a misleading way

As noted in our last alert, the two types of banned reviews are fake reviews (consumer reviews that falsely claim to be based on genuine experiences) and concealed incentivised reviews (when reviewers receive an incentive in any form for writing reviews, but this incentivisation is deliberately hidden from consumers).

It is, however, important to note that the rules against publishing are not just limited to taking steps to tackle these banned reviews, but also extend to ensuring even genuine reviews and related "consumer review information" (e.g. review summaries and aggregated scores/ratings) is not presented in a misleading way.

Examples of such misleading practices include:

• Suppressing and cherry-picking reviews – e.g. limiting negative reviews through editing or removal; selectively promoting positive reviews; or interfering with negative feedback through threats or incentives.
• Omitting relevant information as to how/why reviews have been written – e.g. the reviewer's incentives, financial or commercial interests (e.g. an employee/shareholder/supplier relationship), or limiting negative content (e.g. through editing).
• "Catalogue abuse" – e.g. artificially boosting a product's overall rating by categorising it as being part of a broader product suite. However, where the two products or services are very similar, and the consumer's experience is materially the same, "merging" reviews in this way may be acceptable (e.g. for two devices where the only difference is the colour).
• Outdated genuine reviews – when products evolve over time, traders should assess whether such changes materially impact consumer experience. If they do, they should consider how pre-change reviews should be presented, even where newer reviews address these modifications.
• Artificially boosting aggregated review statistics – e.g. by failing to address the impact of fake reviews which may have impacted the overall star rating given to a product; or artificially boosting the prominence of positive feedback on a review platform in exchange for commission paid by the trader.

A number of proactive compliance steps are required – regardless of the firm's role in "publishing"

The CMA has made it clear that all publishers, in order to comply with the new rules, must:

• have a clear policy on preventing and removing banned reviews, or false or misleading consumer review information;
• conduct regular assessments, both to identify the risks of infringing material appearing in publications and to measure the effectiveness of the prevention and removal processes; and
• take reasonable and proportionate steps to address risks, or take corrective action, where issues are identified.

These steps, designed to prevent the publication of banned and misleading reviews, apply regardless of the firm's role in publishing review content. All firms in the review supply chain must take some form of action – a failure to take any compliance steps cannot be justified by reference to a firm's indirect role in disseminating review content, or its lack of resources (as compared to, for example, large online review platforms).

What counts as "reasonable and proportionate" compliance will vary from firm to firm

The CMA has made it clear that businesses must take "reasonable and proportionate steps" to prevent and remove banned reviews and consumer review information that is false or misleading.

While this will be determined on a case-by-case basis, the CMA has indicated that it may consider the following factors in determining what is "reasonable and proportionate":

• the publisher's business model – e.g. whether the trader operates a search platform publishing user reviews on third-party products or their own website;
• the source of consumer reviews and consumer information – e.g. whether the trader is a "first-party publisher" (i.e. the trader is directly responsible for obtaining, verifying, or managing reviews and information) or a "second-party publisher" (i.e. the trader is displaying website ratings for its business given on a first-party publisher's site);
• the publication medium's functionality – e.g. the extent to which users have control over how the site presents review information (e.g. where the site enables users to recycle or merge reviews, the risk of catalogue abuse increases);
• the type of content – e.g. where publishers use reviews to disseminate information about reliability and trustworthiness of traders, it would be reasonable to take more significant steps prior to publishing such information; and
• the potential impact of the trader's activity on third parties – as well as any additional risks posed to consumers.

Realistically, this may mean that first-party publishers will face more extensive compliance requirements than second-party publishers, although both must implement a risk-based approach to handling review content.

When second-party publishers reference reviews from first-party sources, they should evaluate the first-party's policies to ensure the content meets required standards as set out in the DMCCA.

In practice, how thorough that evaluation will likely need to be will depend on various factors, such as the second-party publisher's own resources and (possibly limited) access to detailed information regarding the first-party publisher's own compliance systems, and the extent to which the first-party publisher has an established track-record for combatting banned reviews.

Risk of enforcement action going forward

The CMA has indicated that, under the new regime, it will look across the entire consumer reviews value chain and consider enforcement action at all levels.

However, the CMA will be prioritising assisting businesses with their compliance efforts, rather than formally investigating businesses for banned reviews before July 2025. With that in mind, the CMA has published various guidance materials, including short form guidance for businesses publishing reviews and consumer review information (which supplements previous compliance advice for improving Trader Recommendation Platforms).

Nevertheless, this does not mean that the CMA will not take enforcement action where the law is clear in the intervening period. Indeed, the CMA has indicated that where it has previously laid down a marker (taking action under its previous, more limited consumer law powers), it will take action to ensure businesses are clear as to their obligations. Businesses should therefore take note of undertakings given in previous cases (see box above) and incorporate these measures into their own practices, where reasonable and proportionate to do so.

Overall, businesses should now take action to assess and implement the compliance steps outlined above. Not only are there significant legal and administrative costs associated with a CMA investigation, the CMA now has enhanced powers to impose fines (technically, up to 10% of global turnover). 

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.