News

CMA secures important changes from Google to tackle fake reviews

United Kingdom | Tuesday, February 4, 2025

On 24 January 2025, the CMA announced that Google LLC has signed undertakings in relation to its processes for tackling fake reviews. These commit Google to have in place enhanced processes to tackle fake reviews written about businesses and services. Google has also agreed to enforce sanctions to deter businesses that try to benefit from fake reviews and sanction those that write fake or misleading reviews.

The agreement comes after the CMA launched an investigation into Google over concerns it may have been breaching consumer law by failing to take sufficient action to protect people from fake reviews – including not doing enough to detect and remove fake reviews, act on suspicious patterns of behaviour, or properly sanction reviewers and businesses who take part in fake review activity.

To address the CMA’s concerns, Google’s undertakings include:

  • An enhanced approach to tackling fake reviews: Google has committed to rigorous steps to detect and remove fake reviews – enabling it to rapidly identify and investigate businesses and reviewers that profit from fake reviews.
  • Consequences for rogue reviewers around the world: Individuals who repeatedly post fake or misleading reviews for UK businesses (positive or negative) will have their reviews deleted and will be banned from posting new reviews – regardless of their location.
  • Consequences for UK businesses: The undertakings mean that businesses found to be boosting their star ratings via fake reviews will have prominent ‘warning’ alerts added to their Google profiles to flag to consumers that suspicious activity has been detected. This will be visible on businesses’ Google profiles, where their overall review scores are shown. Businesses will also have their review function deactivated, meaning they cannot receive any new reviews. Those firms that repeatedly engage in fake review activity will have all their reviews deleted for 6 months or more.
  • Easier reporting: The undertakings commit Google to put in place a robust reporting function that allows consumers to easily and quickly report concerning reviews. This includes the ability to report ‘incentives’ – i.e. a payment or reward in exchange for a positive review – which will apply regardless of whether the incentive is offered in person or online.

To ensure Google is complying with the undertakings it has signed, the firm will report to the CMA over a 3-year period.

As part of the CMA’s work to tackle fake reviews, it has created draft guidance to help businesses ensure they are in line with consumer law. The consultation period on this guidance concluded on 22 January 2025, and the final version is set to be published later this year. It forms part of the CMA’s work to promote an environment where people can be confident they are getting great choices and fair deals online.

The CMA’s investigation into Amazon is ongoing and an update will be made in due course.