Online sites team up to crack down on fake reviews

Amazon, Tripadvisor, and Expedia are among some of the most popular online marketplaces and travel sites taking aim at fake reviews. In a statement released on Tuesday, Oct. 17, some online giants have announced they will team up to thwart the ever-growing problem.

According to Tripadvisor’s yearly transparency report, in 2022, fake reviews on the site represented 4.37% of all submitted reviews, up from 3.6% the year before.

The rampant presence of fake reviews resulted in the creation of the global Coalition for Trusted Reviews. The coalition is made up of teams from Amazon, Booking.com, Expedia Group, Glassdoor, Tripadvisor, and Trust Pilot aimed at facing fake and paid reviews head-on.

The cross-industry collaboration will help define best practices for hosting online reviews and detecting fake ones. Officially, the coalition was created following a first-of-its-kind summit in San Francisco, organized by Tripadvisor, where these online companies got to hear from government and academia experts about the best ways to mitigate the problem.

Despite attempts to combat them, fake reviews have been a problem for online marketplaces for years. Some of the problem lies with paid reviews, where businesses may pay a reviewer to write a negative review on a competitor’s product. According to Tripadvisor, most paid-for reviews originate out of six countries.

• India – 15.68%
• Russia – 13.00%
• United States – 8.18%
• Türkiye – 6.60%
• Italy – 5.95%
• Vietnam – 5.36%

In the ongoing fight against fake reviews, Amazon announced in September that two fake review brokers in China were sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison, followed by three years of probation for using “third-party messaging applications to advertise and sell fake reviews to bad actors operating Amazon selling accounts.”

“Two individual fake review brokers were found guilty of illegal business operations intended to deceive Amazon customers and harm Amazon selling partners through the facilitation of fake reviews,” Amazon said. “These verdicts are the result of local law enforcement’s investigation and a criminal referral supported by Amazon.”

Amazon added that the result of the investigation marked the second criminal verdict of its kind. Amazon has also sued more than 10,000 Facebook group administrators for allegedly brokering fake reviews in exchange for money.

The latest coalition marks the next chapter of what companies are doing to crack down on fake reviews online; federal regulators are also stepping in. In June, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a new rule banning businesses from paying for and receiving fake reviews or face significant penalties.

The coalition is set to meet for another conference in December, this time set up by Amazon to be held in Brussels.