New law on reviews: Consequences for “bullsh*tting your way to number 1”

A few years ago, a journalist for Vice Magazine went viral with an article about how he turned his shed into London’s top-related restaurant on TripAdvisor. How did he do it?

1. Create a website for fake restaurant, The Shed, bookable “by appointment only.”
   
   
2. Populate the website with photos of ”avant garde” cooking, which is in fact composed of ingredients like dishwasher tablets and shaving foam.
   
   
3. Secure a series of fake five-star reviews from friends and family.
   
   
4. The air of exclusivity fostered by the impossibility of booking a table does the rest.

The Shed eventually did open – for one night only – and the journalist secured a deal for his first book: How to bullsh*t your way to number 1.

Whether you admire the chutzpah required to pull off such a stunt or not, the episode showed that it was too easy to manipulate reviews to boost your business’ profile and influence where consumers decide to spend their money. However, from April 2025, this will get harder, when the majority of the consumer aspects of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA) come into force, including specific provisions relating to “fake reviews”.

What’s changing?

1. A series of commercial practices relating to reviews will be banned (as set out below).
   
   
2. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will gain the power to directly issue fines of up to 10% of global annual turnover (or £300,000, whichever is the greater) for noncompliance with the new law, without the need to go through the courts.

If you publish consumer reviews on your company’s website or any other medium, or commission or incentivise others to provide such reviews, this law is relevant to you. The CMA issued draft guidance to help traders comply with the new law on 11 December 2024. Given the short time frame between now and 6 April, it makes sense to start preparing now (if you haven’t already), rather than waiting for this guidance to be finalised.

The new law

From April, the following commercial practices will be banned:

1. Submitting, or commissioning another person to submit or write:
   1. A fake consumer review.
   2. A consumer review that conceals the fact it has been incentivised.
2. Publishing consumer reviews, or consumer review information, in a misleading way.
   
   
3. Publishing consumer reviews, or consumer review information, without taking such reasonable and proportionate steps as are necessary for the purposes of:
   1. Preventing the publication of-
      1. fake consumer reviews.
      2. consumer reviews that conceal the fact they have been incentivised.
      3. consumer review information that is false or misleading.
   2. Removing any such reviews or information from publication…

Understanding the terminology

Consumer review: Defined in the DMCCA as “a review of a product, a trader or any other matter relevant to a transactional decision.” The draft guidance clarifies that this is a broad concept and includes reviews which focus on matters such as the delivery or after-sales care of the product. It can take different forms including text, speech and graphic representations such as a star rating or even a “‘thumbs up”’ next to a helpful review from someone else.

Fake review: Defined in the DMCCA as a review “that purports to be, but is not, based on a person’s genuine experience.” Fake reviews are usually positive, artificially boosting a product or trader’s rating in comparison to its competitors. However, they can also be negative, designed to damage a competitor’s reputation.

Consumer review information: Defined in the DMCCA as “information that is derived from, or is influenced by, consumer reviews.” This means things like overall ratings, review counts and rankings.

What do I need to start/stop doing now to ensure my business is compliant?

To keep things simple, let’s assume you are a company selling products through your own website – and publishing consumer reviews of those products (eg, in the form of star ratings and text feedback).

1. Don’t commission fake reviews, for example:
   1. Sharing a post on social media asking for five-star reviews in exchange for free products.
   2. Asking customers to buy products and informing them they will be refunded when they leave a positive review.
   3. Contacting a customer who has left a negative review and offering them a refund and/or a gift card if they amend their review to remove any negative commentary (so that it is no longer reflective of their genuine experience).
      
      
2. Don’t offer incentives to consumers to leave reviews unless:
   1. You make it clear that the review should reflect their genuine experience, and that they MUST disclose the fact their review has been incentivised.
   2. You clearly and prominently disclose when a consumer’s review was incentivised (eg, by labelling the review as an advert).
   3. You distinguish incentivised reviews from other reviews and take appropriate steps to prevent incentivised reviews from misleading consumers (eg, not counting the review towards a product’s or trader’s overall rating or ranking).
      
      
3. Don’t publish consumer reviews in a misleading way, for example:
   1. Suppressing negative reviews (eg, by editing, withholding or removing such reviews).
   2. Treating negative reviews as a complaint and choosing not to publish them.
   3. Cherry picking positive reviews for publication over negative ones (either through suppressing negative reviews or by encouraging just those who are satisfied to leave reviews).
   4. Presenting reviews of a different product as if they related to the product a consumer is considering buying.
      
      
4. In addition to refraining from the kinds of activity listed at 1-3 above, take the following positive steps:
   1. Carrying out a risk-assessment of the likelihood that consumers will encounter banned reviews, or false/misleading consumer review information on your media (nb, this should be kept under review, it is not a one-off exercise).
   2. Where a risk is identified, establish systems, policies and procedures to detect, investigate and respond to banned reviews or false or misleading consumer review information.
   3. Create a reporting mechanism for the public to report problematic reviews.
   4. Create and publish a policy which explains how you will comply with the law above, including (if applicable) your approach to incentivising reviews and how you disclose these.

The CMA’s approach to enforcement

The CMA guidance notes that:

“Where banned reviews and false or misleading consumer review information are being shown to consumers, this may indicate that the publisher is not taking such reasonable and proportionate steps as are necessary to prevent and remove these reviews and information.”
Persistent failures in these respects are likely to lead to enforcement action from the CMA (including fines as set out above).

How can we help?

1. Help you assess compliance gaps under the new law, and the risk CMA enforcement poses to your business.
2. Undertake a risk assessment and recommend changes to the way that you handle consumer reviews in order to mitigate those risks.
3. Draft reviews policy on your behalf and run training for key staff on how to apply those policies in practice.

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