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Consumer Reviews

A consumer review is any evaluation of a product, service, or business submitted by a consumer (or purported consumer) published on a website or platform that collects and displays such reviews. A consumer review doesn't have to include textual statements; it can be just ratings (e.g., star ratings).

Consumer reviews and ratings are a great promotional tool. However, if your website or e-commerce platform collects and displays consumer reviews for your products, services, or business, there are some regulations you must comply with.¹

Fake Consumers

First and foremost, a review or rating must come from a real person with actual experience with the product, service, or business being reviewed.

If you receive a review or rating from someone who has never used your product or service, or a review that looks fake, remove it – regardless of whether it's good or bad.

If a company offers to "get you lots of great reviews for your products" (for a price, of course), don't do it.

Of course, don't ask someone to create different online identities or accounts and then use those to make positive reviews of your products (or negative reviews of a competitor's products).

Buying Positive or Negative Reviews

You can't purchase positive or negative reviews. In this case, "purchase" doesn't mean just paying someone – it means any type of valuable exchange, including a free product, coupon discount, or other incentive for writing a review with a particular sentiment.

For example, saying, "Tell us how great this product is and get a coupon for a discount off your next purchase," would NOT be acceptable because it implies that you will give the coupon for a good review but not a bad one.

However, it would be acceptable to say, "Please leave a review about your experience with our product and get a discount coupon," because you are giving a coupon regardless of whether the review is good or bad.

Another type of "purchase" is a swap … you agree to write a good review for someone if they write a good review for you.

Reviews from Employees or Family

Procuring consumer reviews from employees or immediate family (parents, siblings, spouse, or children) is prohibited unless the employee or family member has actual experience with the product AND discloses their relationship in some way.

Any time you, an employee, or a family member post a review of your product, service, or business, they must disclose their relationship. This is true not only on your website but on any other sites on which they may post reviews of your products.

Suppressing Reviews

You cannot suppress the reviews that you don't like. You also can't set it up in a way that makes it hard or impossible to find the bad reviews.

There are times when you may need to remove or suppress a review. For example, a review that contains personal information or is obscene, threatening, defamatory, discriminatory, or obviously fake should be removed. When you decide to remove a review, you must base your decision on some OTHER criteria than whether the review is good or bad; you must apply those criteria evenly to all reviews.

False or Deceptive Reviews

You also must remove any review that is false or deceptive. In the case of cosmetics, that includes removing any reviews that make inappropriate, unsubstantiated claims about the product.

You also must remove any review that contains false or deceptive claims. For cosmetic products, that includes claims that the product will treat or cure a physical issue (such as eczema, redness, acne, or muscle soreness). Even if it's true for the consumer, such a claim is technically false or deceptive because the cosmetic product is not approved as a drug.