Amazon & Google Investigated By An UK Regulator Over Fake Reviews

Formal investigation was opened on Friday against Amazon and Alphabet Inc as concerns rose that the tech giants haven’t contributed enough into combating fake reviews on their sites.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it will gather more evidence to see if the companies infringed consumer law by failing to take adequate measures to safeguard customers from bogus reviews.

The move follows an initial CMA examination into various platforms' internal systems and processes for detecting and dealing with fraudulent reviews, which began in May 2020.

The regulator expressed concerns that Amazon's systems had failed to prevent and deter certain sellers from altering product listings, such as by co-opting positive evaluations from other products.

According to CMA Chief Executive Andrea Coscelli “Our worry is that millions of online shoppers could be misled by reading fake reviews and then spending their money based on those recommendations".

As he mentioned "Equally, it’s simply not fair if some businesses can fake 5-star reviews to give their products or services the most prominence, while law-abiding businesses lose out."

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