Italy - Tripadvisor fined 500,000 € by the Italian Authority for misleading practice
On 19 December 2014 the AGCM - Italian Competition Authority - closed an investigation concerning Tripadvisor and the Italian version of its travel review website. The probe focused on the claim that consumers could find on the website many "true and authentic reviews, which you can trust" and the "most sincere opinions", published by millions of travelers and regarding hotels, bed & breakfasts, restaurants, etc. According to the claim, when organizing a trip, consumers could rely on the reviews contained in the website to find useful suggestions and choose where to stay. In fact, from the complaints by hoteliers and a consumer association and through the investigation it emerged that fake reviews can be easily introduced in the website, by hoteliers who want to discredit competitors or try to unduly praise their own business. Tripadvisor uses a filtering system to check the truthfulness of reviews, but this cannot eliminate all fake reviews.
The AGCM assessed that the fake reviews remaining on the website are sufficient to influence Tripadvisor's classifying systems of tourist structures, which ranks hotels and restaurants according to visitor reviews, and this can significantly influence consumer choice. On this background, the claims of "true and authentic reviews" and reliable visitor opinions hosted on the website must be assessed as misleading information that can deceive the average consumer and is likely to cause him to take a transactional decision that he would not have taken otherwise, thus infringing articles 5, 6 and 7 of the EU Directive 2005/29 on UCPs, as transposed into articles 20, 21, and 22 of the Italian Consumer Code, Under the provision of article 27 of the Italian Consumer Code, Tripadvisor was fined 500,000 euros ans was given 90 days to comply with the ruling.
Both the Italian version and the English version of the full text of the decision can be found at AGCM's website: http://www.agcm.it/stampa/comunicati/7365-ps9345-mezzo-milione-di-multa-a-tripadvisor.html