Google will take tougher action against UK businesses that use fake reviews to boost their ratings on the search giant’s reviews platform. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced on Friday that Google had agreed to improve its processes for detecting and removing fake reviews and would take action against businesses and reviewers who post them.
This includes disabling the ability to add new reviews for businesses that use fake reviews and removing all existing reviews for at least six months if they repeatedly engage in suspicious review activity. Google will also place prominent “warning alerts” on the Google profiles of businesses using fake reviews to help consumers be more aware of potentially misleading reviews. People who repeatedly post false or misleading reviews on UK business pages will be banned and have their review history removed, even if they are in another country.
Google is required to report to the CMA over the next three years to ensure it is complying with the agreement.
“The changes we got from Google ensure we have robust processes in place, so people can trust the reviews and make the best choices possible,” Sarah Cardell, CMA chief executive, said in a statement. “This is a matter of fairness – for both businesses and consumers – and we encourage the entire sector to take note. »
Google made similar changes to reviews in Maps last year, saying that contributions “must reflect a real experience at a location or business.” However, these changes apply globally, while Google’s commitment to improving reviews across all of its properties appears to only apply to the UK at the moment.
The review changes follow a CMA investigation launched against Google and Amazon in 2021 over concerns the companies may have breached consumer protection laws by not doing enough to tackle fake reviews on their platforms . The CMA says its investigation into Amazon is still ongoing and an update will be announced “in due course”.
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