You will have heard, the Federal Commerce Fee announced that they’ve formally banned pretend evaluations and AI-generated pretend evaluations. However will this really find yourself doing something?
That is what the FTC wrote, The ultimate rule prohibits:
- Faux or False Client Critiques, Client Testimonials, and Superstar Testimonials: The ultimate rule addresses evaluations and testimonials that misrepresent that they’re by somebody who doesn’t exist, akin to AI-generated pretend evaluations, or who didn’t have precise expertise with the enterprise or its services or products, or that misrepresent the expertise of the individual giving it. It prohibits companies from creating or promoting such evaluations or testimonials. It additionally prohibits them from shopping for such evaluations, procuring them from firm insiders, or disseminating such testimonials, when the enterprise knew or ought to have identified that the evaluations or testimonials have been pretend or false.
- Shopping for Optimistic or Detrimental Critiques: The ultimate rule prohibits companies from offering compensation or different incentives conditioned on the writing of shopper evaluations expressing a selected sentiment, both constructive or unfavourable. It clarifies that the conditional nature of the supply of compensation or incentive could also be expressly or implicitly conveyed.
- Insider Critiques and Client Testimonials: The ultimate rule prohibits sure evaluations and testimonials written by firm insiders that fail to obviously and conspicuously disclose the giver’s materials connection to the enterprise. It prohibits such evaluations and testimonials given by officers or managers. It additionally prohibits a enterprise from disseminating such a testimonial that the enterprise ought to have identified was by an officer, supervisor, worker, or agent. Lastly, it imposes necessities when officers or managers solicit shopper evaluations from their very own speedy kin or from staff or brokers – or after they inform staff or brokers to solicit evaluations from kin and such solicitations end in evaluations by speedy kin of the staff or brokers.
- Firm-Managed Assessment Web sites: The ultimate rule prohibits a enterprise from misrepresenting {that a} web site or entity it controls gives impartial evaluations or opinions a few class of services or products that features its personal services or products.
- Assessment Suppression: The ultimate rule prohibits a enterprise from utilizing unfounded or groundless authorized threats, bodily threats, intimidation, or sure false public accusations to forestall or take away a unfavourable shopper evaluation. The ultimate rule additionally bars a enterprise from misrepresenting that the evaluations on a evaluation portion of its web site signify all or many of the evaluations submitted when evaluations have been suppressed based mostly upon their scores or unfavourable sentiment.
- Misuse of Faux Social Media Indicators: The ultimate rule prohibits anybody from promoting or shopping for pretend indicators of social media affect, akin to followers or views generated by a bot or hijacked account. This prohibition is restricted to conditions during which the customer knew or ought to have identified that the symptoms have been pretend and misrepresent the customer’s affect or significance for a industrial goal.
However as Greg Sterling posted on X, “The brand new FTC rule “banning” pretend evaluations and testimonials will assist handle evaluation fraud. However there is not any legal responsibility or formal obligations for Google, and so on. (see Part 230). Which means platform enforcement will stay sporadic and piecemeal. Most likely BAU.”
So we’ll see what occurs however I do hope pretend evaluations get tougher and occur much less usually…
Discussion board dialogue at X.