The Federal Commerce Fee banned companies from writing and shopping for their very own opinions in an August ruling. Now, it is alleging {that a} buyer assessment web site, Sitejabber, printed “deceptive” rankings and opinions on behalf of the 130,000 companies on its platform. The FTC’s proposed order would cease Sitejabber from “misrepresenting” buyer rankings and opinions “sooner or later.”
The FTC’s criticism alleges that Sitejabber collected opinions on the level of sale, or earlier than clients obtained or skilled a services or products. In a single instance, clients had been requested to fee their general buying expertise out of 5 stars and write one thing rapidly instantly after trying out.
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These fast rankings and opinions, or Instantaneous Suggestions Survey outcomes, change into a part of a web site’s profile on Sitejabber. The FTC says this might mislead folks into considering prior clients rated a enterprise’s services or products extremely once they had been truly simply score the buying expertise.
“Presenting [Instant Feedback Survey] outcomes as post-fulfillment opinions and rankings can mislead shoppers into believing {that a} enterprise’s excessive assessment rely and excessive score means hundreds of shoppers have had optimistic experiences with the enterprise’s services or products, when in truth the rankings and opinions displayed primarily mirrored solely clients’ experiences buying on the enterprise’s web sites,” web page 4 of the FTC criticism reads.
The way to Keep away from FTC Scrunity on Your Web site Opinions
Companies can keep away from FTC scrutiny by ensuring their Instantaneous Suggestions Survey rankings and opinions are unentangled from their product rankings and opinions — so clients clearly know what’s being rated.
This is without doubt one of the FTC’s first enforcement actions below its new rule.
“Together with our rule on faux opinions and testimonials, instances like this one present that we’ll act to cease all types of deception within the assessment ecosystem.” FTC Bureau of Shopper Safety director Samuel Levine acknowledged.
The FTC’s earlier rule on faux opinions and testimonials stops companies from shopping for or promoting faux opinions, together with AI-generated ones.
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