{"id":15410,"date":"2019-06-21T18:28:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T18:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/facebook-and-ebay-told-to-tackle-trade-in-fake-reviews.html"},"modified":"2019-06-21T18:28:45","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T18:28:45","slug":"facebook-and-ebay-told-to-tackle-trade-in-fake-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/facebook-and-ebay-told-to-tackle-trade-in-fake-reviews.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook and eBay told to tackle trade in fake reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook <\/a> and eBay <\/a> have been warned by the U.K.\u2019s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to do more to tackle the sale of fake reviews on their platforms.<\/p>\n

Fake reviews are illegal under U.K. consumer protection law.<\/p>\n

The CMA said today<\/a> it has found \u201ctroubling evidence\u201d of a \u201cthriving marketplace for fake and misleading online reviews.\u201d Though it also writes that it does not believe the platforms themselves are intentionally allowing such content to appear on their sites.<\/p>\n

The regulator says it crawled content on eBay and Facebook between November 2018 and June 2019 \u2014 finding more than 100 eBay listings offering fake reviews for sale during that time.<\/p>\n

Over the same period it also identified 26 Facebook groups where people offered to write fake reviews or where businesses recruited people to write fake and misleading reviews on popular shopping and review sites.<\/p>\n

The CMA cites estimates that more than three-quarters of U.K. internet users consider online reviews before making a purchase decision \u2014 with \u201cbillions\u201d of pounds\u2019 worth of people\u2019s spending being influenced by such content. So the incentives driving a market to trade reviews for money is clear.<\/p>\n

Commenting in a statement, the CMA\u2019s CEO, Andrea Coscelli, said: \u201cWe want Facebook and eBay to conduct an urgent review of their sites to prevent fake and misleading online reviews from being bought and sold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of us rely on reviews when shopping online to decide what to buy. It is important that people are able to trust that reviews are genuine, rather than something someone has been paid to write,\u201d he added.\u00a0\u201cFake reviews mean that people might make the wrong choice and end up with a product or service that\u2019s not right for them. They\u2019re also unfair to businesses who do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The regulator says that after it wrote to eBay and Facebook to inform them of its findings they have both \u201cindicated that they will cooperate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Facebook also told the CMA that \u201cmost\u201d of the 26 groups it identified have now been removed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The regulator says he expects the sites to put measures in place to ensure all the identified content is removed \u2014 and stop it from reappearing.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time of writing, a search of ebay.co.uk for \u201creviews\u201d returned sellers offering five-star media reviews, five-star Google reviews and five-star Trustpilot reviews as the top three results \u2014 one of which was also a sponsored post:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Additional eBay listings included one offering \u201c1\/2\/3\/4\/5 Star Freeindex Customer Service Review for business,\u201d priced at \u00a310 and sold by a U.K.-based seller who has been an eBay member since Feb 2011; one five-star review \u201con Google\u201d that the seller touts with the line, \u201cBoost your business and get new Customers\u201d \u2014 at a cost of \u00a32.69; one \u201c100% positive FAST\u201d review for \u00a31; and five five-star reviews on Google priced at \u00a315 \u2014 offered by a seller apparently based in Portugal who has been an eBay member since March 2014.<\/p>\n

A search of U.K. Facebook groups returned multiple examples of closed groups where sellers appear to be soliciting reviews, either in exchange for goods and\/or payment\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reached for a response to the CMA\u2019s call for measures to be put in place to tackle the illegal trade in fake reviews, Facebook sent us the following statement \u2014 attributed to a spokesperson:<\/p>\n

\n

Fraudulent activity is not allowed on Facebook, including the trading of fake reviews. We have removed 24 of the 26 groups and pages that the CMA reported to us yesterday and had already removed a number of them prior to the CMA flagging them to us. We know there is more to do which is why we\u2019ve tripled the size of our safety and security team to 30,000 and continue to invest in technology to help proactively prevent abuse of our platform.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

An eBay spokesperson also told us:<\/p>\n

\n

We have zero tolerance for fake or misleading reviews. We have informed the CMA that all of the sellers they identified have been suspended. The listings have been removed. Listings such as these are strictly against our policy on illegal activity and we will act where our rules are broken. We welcome the report from the CMA and will work closely with them in reviewing its findings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/vZPkF-vq9RY\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook and eBay have been warned by the U.K.\u2019s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to do more to tackle the sale of fake reviews on their platforms. Fake reviews are <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-15410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t