Attitudes are changing. As is the law.
Whilst undoubtedly immoral, there were no specific UK laws preventing businesses faking their reviews until now. Knowingly buying fake reviews breached consumer protection laws but these laws are flexible, principle-based, and are sparsely enforced.
Unscrupulous businesses have been taking advantage of this grey area by using bots and review farms to artificially inflate the reviews of their apps and products.
The 2024 Digital Markets, Competition & Consumers Act makes this illegal.
The DMCC Act is punitive but is currently little-known and under-publicised. Companies will have to be able to prove that they don’t fake their reviews and those who get caught will be fined up to 10% of global turnover.
Fake negative reviews are growing at twice the rate of fake positives.
As some business’ star ratings approach 4.99, there is an alarming trend for these dishonest companies to use their new-found superpowers against their competition. The number of fake negative reviews being used is growing at twice the rate of the fake positives. We know all too well the negative effects of review bombing having been the victims of an orchestrated and deeply-harmful negative review campaign on a previous project.
The TruthEngine® is our response!
