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FTC eying false online reviews
“Fake” online reviews have attracted the attention of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which is the agency created to protect American consumers from false advertising.
The FTC put out a press release on "guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials" almost a year ago. A key element was that "material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed."
“That allegedly did not deter some agencies’ employees from going beyond the call of duty and being overly enthusiastic about clients’ products they supposedly bought on their own. That at least is the facile explanation being offered in a case against a public relations firm that was recently settled by the FTC,” writes Vijay Dandapani in 4-Hoteliers.
Fake hotel reviews have long been the bane of leading hotel review sites like Tripadvisor.com and VirtualTourist.com. Those and other sites have elaborate but secret mechanisms in place to catch “fake” reviews.
One way for these UGC (user generated content) sites to further enhance their credibility is to replicate Amazon’s "real name" feature on its book review site, suggests Dandapani, who is Chief Operating Officer and part-founder of Apple Core Hotels.
TripAdvisor’s strength is the number of reviews each hostelry quickly gathers and the facility’s rankings move up or down based on the reviews.
Most potential guests can fairly easily make out any "fake" reviews but usually can also tease out outrageously biased ones even when posted by real guests.
The FTC also serves to monitor truth in advertising. Unlike the UK, the US does not have an independent industry funded watchdog like the Advertising Standards Authority which monitors advertising content to minimize the risk of consumers being misled.
As in online reviews, the FTC has guidelines for truth in advertising which proscribe deceptive and unfair acts.
By David Wilkening
David
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