The United States Federal Trade Commission published new rules regarding reviews and testimonials, which went into effect in October of 2024. The rules focus on fake reviews, incentivized reviews ,and review manipulation. In this context, the FTC has stated an intention to, “protect Americans from getting cheated, put businesses that unlawfully game the system on notice, and promote markets that are fair, honest, and competitive."
This article covers:
What you need to know
The FTC’s rules are now final and have been enforced since of October 2024.
The key to compliance is transparency, and your brand should follow best practices to avoid scrutiny and legal action.
Okendo’s platform offers features and tools to help you remain compliant.
Okendo features and best practices
Below are ways that Okendo helps you stay on top of review best practices.
Automatic review publishing
Okendo recommends that you publish all legitimate reviews and offers auto-publish to help facilitate this process.
Any reviews flagged for manual review will remain pending for 14 days before also being automatically published.
Rejecting (suppressing) reviews
According to § 465.7 the following are listed as “valid reasons for review suppression”
If the review contains:
trade secrets or privileged or confidential commercial or financial information
libelous, harassing, abusive, obscene, vulgar, or sexually explicit content
the personal information or likeness of another person
content that is discriminatory with respect to race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or another protected class
content that is clearly false or misleading
If the merchant believes the review is fake
If the review is wholly unrelated to the products or services offered by or available at the website or platform
Incentivized review badge
If a review receives an incentive for leaving a review, Okendo can display a badge to provide transparency.
Verified reviewer and verified buyer badges
Verified buyers will display a BUYER indicator next to the customer name
Verified reviewers will have a checkmark.
No merchant editing permissions
Okendo does not allow review content editing. Reviews may be approved or rejected.
The exception to this is that certain words can be censored with *** if Okendo’s Profanity Filter is enabled.
Review requests sent to all eligible reviewers
Okendo does not discriminate or use any sort of predictive filtering when sending review requests. Any shopper who is deemed eligible to leave a review is added to the review request sequence.
We do not recommend configuring additional filters if sending review requests via a 3rd party ESP (see FTC's review collection guide).
Examples of improper filters would be segmenting review requests based on customer profile data such as prior review ratings, prior review sentiment, NPS, etc.
Further information from the FTC
The below is taken directly from the FTC’s Press Release and highlights the main guidelines and rules that must now be followed.
Fake or false consumer reviews, consumer testimonials, and celebrity testimonials
The final rule addresses reviews and testimonials that misrepresent that they are by someone who does not exist, such as AI-generated fake reviews, or who did not have actual experience with the business or its products or services, or that misrepresent the experience of the person giving it. It prohibits businesses from creating or selling such reviews or testimonials. It also prohibits them from buying such reviews, procuring them from company insiders, or disseminating such testimonials, when the business knew or should have known that the reviews or testimonials were fake or false.
Buying positive or negative reviews
The final rule prohibits businesses from providing compensation or other incentives conditioned on the writing of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, either positive or negative. It clarifies that the conditional nature of the offer of compensation or incentive may be expressly or implicitly conveyed.
Insider reviews and consumer testimonials
The final rule prohibits certain reviews and testimonials written by company insiders that fail to clearly and conspicuously disclose the giver’s material connection to the business. It prohibits such reviews and testimonials given by officers or managers. It also prohibits a business from disseminating such a testimonial that the business should have known was by an officer, manager, employee, or agent. Finally, it imposes requirements when officers or managers solicit consumer reviews from their own immediate relatives or from employees or agents – or when they tell employees or agents to solicit reviews from relatives and such solicitations result in reviews by immediate relatives of the employees or agents.
Company-controlled review websites
The final rule prohibits a business from misrepresenting that a website or entity it controls provides independent reviews or opinions about a category of products or services that includes its own products or services.
Review suppression
The final rule prohibits a business from using unfounded or groundless legal threats, physical threats, intimidation, or certain false public accusations to prevent or remove a negative consumer review. The final rule also bars a business from misrepresenting that the reviews on a review portion of its website represent all or most of the reviews submitted when reviews have been suppressed based upon their ratings or negative sentiment.