Cabinet submits bill to ban fake reviews by online sellers – IT Pro – News

The caretaker cabinet has introduced a bill that will stop online sellers from writing fake reviews or having them written. The bill follows European regulations that prohibit this.

Outgoing Minister Stef Blok of Economic Affairs has adopted that bill published on Wednesday evening. That now goes to the House of Representatives. The bill prescribes that fake reviews of products are no longer allowed. Merchants are “prohibited from posting or allowing the posting of false consumer reviews and recommendations.” This also includes likes purchased on social media. Also, sellers are not only allowed to show positive reviews and remove negative reviews.

The rules do not only apply to reviews and reviews that the merchants write or have written, but to all reviews on a product. The bill states that a seller must “provide information on whether and how it checks that published consumer reviews are from consumers who actually purchased the product.” A seller must be able to show this on request. If the seller can’t provide that information, “it’s an unfair business practice.” This practically prohibits such fake reviews.

There are even more guarantees in the law. If merchants have not taken “reasonable and proportionate steps” to verify that reviews are authentic, they should not advertise with statements that the product was purchased by real consumers.

The cabinet wants to better protect online buyers with the new rules. The aim of the law is to achieve better enforcement of consumer rules and to optimize consumer rules for digital developments.

With the bill, the minister follows a European proposal. The EU has been working on such legislation for two years. There is now a European consumer protection directive, which Blok now wants to adopt definitively.

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