FTC finalizes rule to combat fake reviews, testimonials

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced a final rule aimed at cracking down on deceptive practices in online reviews and testimonials.

The FTC has now finalized its federal rules banning fake reviews online, with the Commission voting unanimously to adopt the standards it's been working on for almost two years. It'll officially go into effect, with regulatory power in the US, sixty days after it's published in the Federal Register. That should make it active sometime later this year.

Here are some of the rules:

• No reviews or testimonials from people who don't exist. That means companies can't invent user profiles or mass-create reviews. The FTC is specifically disallowing AI-generated reviews of any kind, including those that use AI to impersonate real people and/or celebrities.
• No buying reviews of any kind, positive or negative. "Buying" in this context includes any kind of compensation, including straight payments, "rebates" after you leave a review, and discounts on future purchases.
• No reviews from company insiders. You can't leave a review for a product - whether on your own website or a general online store - if you work for the company that sells the product or have some other financial relationship with them, like being a contractor. The FTC is also putting "requirements" on reviews solicited from family members, though what exactly those stipulations are weren't spelled out in the press release. I'm guessing there will be some kind of disclosure clause.

Read more -here-

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