If you shop online from time to time, you've probably come across a product that has evident fake reviews. That will might end soon enough as the Federal Trade Commission proposed a ban on fabricated reviews on products and services online.
Removing Fake Reviews
One of the disadvantages of ordering items or services online is that there's no guarantee about their quality. You can't really see the product physically so you will have to rely on reviews. However, that cannot be trusted as well.
You can spot fake reviews by observing how they are constructed or if you see the very same sentence from other users. The FTC sees how much of an inconvenience it is to consumers and aims to correct the unreliable online review system by fake reviews.
The FTC has been working on the proposal for some time, according to Tech Crunch. The idea was initiated by an incident back in 2019 where a vendor paying buyers to create fake reviews, or influencers advertising a product without disclosing that they were paid for it.
The proposal is almost done after undergoing research, consultation with businesses, interviewing customers, and even advertising trade organizations, with the latter even expressing that the FTC is wasting their time.
By now, there must already be countless fake reviews online and it could be near impossible to tackle them all. The Association of National Advertisers says that the FTC "has not demonstrated evidence of prevalence" and that the new rules would just be "burdensome."
Although, the FTC established rules that would not affect genuine reviews. For the obvious one, merchants cannot solicit or pay for fake reviews, nor can they make fake profiles to create them or use AI tools to generate fabricated ones.
They can't hijack good reviews by replacing the product with a new one to appear as it has already been tested by consumers. Merchants cannot pay for negative reviews for their own products and their competitors as well.
The products cannot be reviewed by company leadership or related persons without indication. The merchant can't create a review site for their own products and pretend that they are independent, as well as prohibit them from suppressing reviews through intimidation.
AI-Generated Reviews
The FTC took notice of the prevalence of generative AI in the product review scene, saying that it makes it easier for bad actors to write fake reviews. They're right, in a way, especially since some have already emerged even in retail giants like Amazon.
Although, the reviews left by AI on a product is not actually deceptive, seeing as the comment clearly indicates that it was written by AI. Through ChatHGPT, reviews were left on products like trainers, textbooks for children, car batteries, and more, as mentioned in Gizmodo.
For example, it starts off with "as an AI language model," which then proceeds to explain why the product is something the customers should buy. There's no guarantee and is actually likely that not all AI-generated reviews are clearly indicated.
