Featuring Online
Customer Reviews:
A Guide for Platforms
Featuring Online Customer Reviews: A Guide for Platforms
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Consumers who rely on online reviews of companies, products, and
services should be getting a true and accurate picture of what other
consumers think. If you operate a website or platform that features
reviews, have processes in place to ensure those reviews truly
reflect the feedback received from legitimate customers about their
real experiences.
Dierent types of companies are involved in collecting, moderating,
and publishing reviews, so the same processes won’t necessarily
make sense for all of them. For example, an online retailer may
feature user reviews for its own products and for products other
companies sell on its website. Other websites are platforms for
consumers to leave reviews of hotels, restaurants, or other service
providers. User reviews also appear in search engine results, in app
stores, and on social media pages, among other places.
FTC sta believes that, whatever your business model may be,
you should be transparent about your review-related practices and
should pay attention to several basic principles that derive from
Section 5 of the FTC Act. Doing so is important for establishing
consumer trust and avoiding potentially deceptive conduct.
Featuring Online Customer Reviews: A Guide for Platforms
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Review collection
Online retailers, review platforms, and other companies collect
reviews from consumers in dierent ways. Some use “open”
systems that allow all consumers to submit reviews, while others
use “closed” systems that limit collection to verified buyers or users.
Neither system is immune to fake reviews, though operators of
“open” systems may face more challenges in determining whether
reviews are legitimate. Some companies are proactive in seeking
more reviews, using repeated requests and sometimes oering
incentives to consumers. As reflected in cases brought by the FTC
and other law enforcement agencies, some of these companies
go too far, oering incentives only for positive reviews, or taking
improper steps to avoid collecting negative reviews.
Here are some basic principles that FTC sta believes companies
should follow:
1. Don’t ask for reviews only from people you think will leave
positive ones.
2. If you oer an incentive to consumers for leaving a review, don’t
condition it, explicitly or implicitly, on the review being positive.
Even without that condition, oering an incentive to write a
review may introduce bias or change the weight and credibility
that readers give that review. For these reasons, some platforms
have prohibited incentivized reviews altogether or have
established mechanisms for labeling them.
3. Don’t prevent or discourage people
from submitting negative reviews.
Featuring Online Customer Reviews: A Guide for Platforms
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Review moderation
How a company processes or “moderates” reviews is another
element that varies depending on a number of factors – for
example, the company’s business model, size, and resources. Many
companies use both automated systems and human moderators
to filter out fake reviews or content that violates company policies
(such as prohibitions on obscenity and harassment). Companies may
moderate reviews before they’re posted, after they’re posted, or at
dierent times throughout the process.
FTC sta believes that, despite the wide variety of processing
techniques, a few basic principles apply:
1. Have reasonable processes in place to verify that reviews are
genuine and not fake, deceptive, or otherwise manipulated. As
technology and threats change, be proactive in modifying and
upgrading your processes.
2. Don’t edit reviews to alter the message. For example, don’t
change words to make a negative review sound more positive.
3. Treat positive and negative reviews equally. Don’t subject
negative reviews to greater scrutiny.
Featuring Online Customer Reviews: A Guide for Platforms
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Review publication
Companies that feature online reviews make choices about what
feedback to display and what to tell consumers about that feedback.
For example, some online retailers and review platforms allow only
narrative reviews, or only narrative reviews of a certain minimum
length. Others allow reviews that consist only of a star rating. Some
provide information about each reviewer and how overall ratings are
calculated. Others are much less transparent. And companies that
allow publication of incentivized reviews vary on whether and how
those reviews are identified.
FTC sta believe that companies should favor transparency and
follow these principles:
1. Publish all genuine reviews and don’t exclude negative ones.
2. Don’t display reviews in a misleading way. For example, it could
be deceptive to feature the positive ones more prominently.
3. If you display reviews when the reviewer has a material
connection to the company oering the product or service – for
example, when the reviewer has received compensation or a
free product in exchange for their review – that relationship
should be clearly and conspicuously disclosed.
Featuring Online Customer Reviews: A Guide for Platforms
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Review publication
(continued)
4. Clearly and conspicuously disclose how you collect, process,
and display reviews, and how you determine overall ratings,
to the extent necessary to avoid misleading consumers.
5. Have reasonable procedures to identify fake or suspicious
reviews after publication. If a consumer or business tells you
a review may be fake, investigate and take appropriate action.
That may include taking down suspicious or phony reviews,
leaving them up with appropriate labels, issuing an alert about
them, and addressing the issue with those responsible for it.
FAKE
FAKE
