{"id":13850,"date":"2024-11-07T22:45:53","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T22:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/?p=13850"},"modified":"2024-11-07T22:45:53","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T22:45:53","slug":"why-the-ftc-charged-sitejabber-with-fake-ratings-and-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/07\/why-the-ftc-charged-sitejabber-with-fake-ratings-and-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the FTC Charged Sitejabber With Fake Ratings and Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Federal Trade Commission <a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/ftc-bans-businesses-from-buying-bot-followers-fake-reviews\/478544\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\">banned businesses<\/a> from writing and buying their own reviews in an August ruling. Now, it&#8217;s alleging that a customer review site, Sitejabber, published &#8220;misleading&#8221; ratings and reviews on behalf of the 130,000 businesses on its platform. The FTC&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/system\/files\/ftc_gov\/pdf\/SiteJabber-D%26O.pdf\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\">proposed order<\/a> would stop Sitejabber from &#8220;misrepresenting&#8221; customer ratings and reviews &#8220;in the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/system\/files\/ftc_gov\/pdf\/SiteJabber-Complaint.pdf\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\">The FTC&#8217;s complaint<\/a> alleges that Sitejabber collected reviews at the point of sale, or before customers received or experienced a product or service. In one example, customers were asked to rate their overall shopping experience out of five stars and write something quickly directly after checking out.<\/p>\n<p><b>Related: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/own-pyrex-measuring-cups-ftc-might-be-sending-you-a-check\/480885\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\">Do You Own Pyrex Measuring Cups? The FTC Might Send You a Check in the Mail<\/a><\/p>\n<p>These quick ratings and reviews, or Instant Feedback Survey results, become part of a site&#8217;s profile on Sitejabber. The FTC says this could mislead people into thinking prior customers rated a business&#8217;s product or service highly when they were actually just rating the shopping experience.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Presenting [Instant Feedback Survey] results as post-fulfillment reviews and ratings can mislead consumers into believing that a business&#8217;s high review count and high rating means thousands of customers have had positive experiences with the business&#8217;s products or services, when in fact the ratings and reviews displayed primarily reflected only customers&#8217; experiences shopping on the business&#8217;s websites,&#8221; page four of the FTC complaint reads.<\/p>\n<h2>How to Avoid FTC Scrunity on Your Website Reviews<\/h2>\n<p>Businesses can avoid FTC scrutiny by making sure their Instant Feedback Survey ratings and reviews are unentangled from their product ratings and reviews \u2014 so customers clearly know what&#8217;s being rated.<\/p>\n<p>This is one of the FTC&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2024\/11\/6\/24289857\/ftc-fake-review-order-sitejabber-misleading-product-ratings\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\">first enforcement actions<\/a> under its new rule.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Along with our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/news-events\/news\/press-releases\/2024\/08\/federal-trade-commission-announces-final-rule-banning-fake-reviews-testimonials\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\">rule on fake reviews and testimonials<\/a>, cases like this one show that we&#8217;ll act to stop all forms of deception in the review ecosystem.&#8221; FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection director Samuel Levine stated.<\/p>\n<p>The FTC&#8217;s earlier rule on fake reviews and testimonials stops businesses from buying or selling fake reviews, including AI-generated ones.<\/p>\n<p><b>Related:<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/facebook-youtube-whatsapp-surveil-monetize-user-data-ftc\/480188\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\">Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp All &#8216;Engaged in Vast Surveillance&#8217; to Earn Billions, According to the FTC<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/why-the-ftc-charged-sitejabber-with-fake-ratings-and-reviews\/482560\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Federal Trade Commission banned businesses from writing and buying their own reviews in an August ruling. Now, it&#8217;s alleging that a customer review site, Sitejabber, published &#8220;misleading&#8221; ratings and reviews on behalf of the 130,000 businesses on its platform. The FTC&#8217;s proposed order would stop Sitejabber from &#8220;misrepresenting&#8221; customer ratings and reviews &#8220;in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assets.entrepreneur.com\/content\/3x2\/2000\/1731011611-Ratings-GettyImages-2099158659.jpg?format=pjeg&auto=webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13852,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13850\/revisions\/13852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}