Probe into ‘broken’ reviews sector

The competition regulator is probing the £23bn online reviews market after a study revealed what everyone has known for years – many businesses are paying bloggers to right positive reviews while also ambushing rivals with fake negative ones.
Following claims the sector is “broken”, the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) will investigate a number of companies, amid reports that the use of paid-for endorsements may be unlawful.
The CMA found that 54% of UK consumers used online reviews on sites such as TripAdvisor and Checkatrade, to booking agents such as Expedia and retailers such as Amazon. It estimated that £23bn a year of consumer spending was potentially influenced by online reviews.
However, among the potentially misleading cases, on unnamed sites, were businesses writing fake reviews of themselves to boost their ratings and firms writing or commissioning fake negative reviews to undermine rivals.
“A review site may want to maximise its own commercial revenues from subscriptions, and may jeopardise this if it upsets business clients by publishing negative reviews,” the CMA report said. “Consumers may be using the threat of a poor review to ‘blackmail’ businesses into providing some concession, such as a price discount.”
CMA senior director Nisha Arora said: “We are committed to ensuring that consumers’ trust in these important information tools is maintained, and will take enforcement action where necessary to tackle unlawful practices.”
In response to the probe, Expedia released a statement which reads: “Expedia has more than 15 million verified hotel reviews for properties all over the world with new reviews being posted daily. All reviews on Expedia are verified and we have a rigorous process in place to ensure that our customers’ voices can be heard and that all reviews published on our site are genuine and provide highly relevant information to travellers.
“Travellers can only submit a review by clicking a link they receive via email after their stay at a hotel booked on Expedia. This allows them to submit a review from their Expedia account up to six months after completing the stay and we ask travellers to read our review guidelines before submitting. Furthermore, only the account holder who made the booking and who stayed at the hotel booked on Expedia can write a review. All submissions are reviewed to ensure that they comply with our review guidelines before being published on our website.
“Hotels can respond to traveller reviews via our Expedia Partner Central portal for hoteliers. If we believe that a property is wilfully misleading customers, we will take appropriate action including removing them from our site.”