Fake reviews on e-commerce platforms under Centre’s radar

To gauge the magnitude of and to prepare a roadmap ahead, the Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) in association with the Advertising Standards Council of Inda (ASCI) will be holding a virtual meeting on Friday, May 27 along with various stakeholders, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution.

"The discussions will be broadly based on the impact of fake and misleading reviews on consumers and possible measures to prevent such anomalies," the ministry said.

DoCA Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh has written to all stakeholders, including e-commerce entities like Flipkart, Amazon, Tata Sons, Reliance Retail and others besides, Consumer Forums, Law Universities, Lawyers, FICCI, CII, Consumer Rights Activists etc. to participate in the meeting.

Along with the letter, a press release from the European Commission dated January 20, 2022, that highlights the results of an EU-wide screening on online consumer reviews across 223 major websites has been sent.

The screening results underlines that at least 55 percent of the websites violate the unfair commercial Practices Directive of the E.U. which requires truthful information to be presented to consumers to make an informed choice.

Further, in 144 out of the 223 websites checked, the authorities could not confirm that traders were doing enough to ensure that reviews were authentic, i.e., if they were posted by consumers who had actually used the product or service that was reviewed.

The letter states that ‘It is relevant to mention that with growing internet and smartphone use, consumers are increasingly shopping online to purchase goods and services. Given that e-commerce involves a virtual shopping experience without any opportunity to physically view or examine the product, consumers heavily rely on reviews posted on e-commerce platforms to see the opinion and experience of user who have already purchased the goods or service. As a result, due to fake and misleading reviews, the right to be informed, which is a consumer right under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 is violated.’

‘Since the issue impacts people shopping online on a daily basis and has a significant impact on their rights as a consumer, it is important that it is examined with greater scrutiny and detail,’ the letter states.