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This article is part of ‘Guidelines on the protection of the online consumer’. View full guideline

Rules regarding the posting of reviews and recommendations

Before consumers buy something, they often look at other consumers’ reviews and recommendations. This helps them decide whether or not they wish to purchase a product from you. That is why consumers must be able to rely on consumer reviews, likes, or other forms of consumer feedback. That is why there are rules in place for displaying consumer reviews. You cannot mislead consumers with consumer reviews.

Consumers often look at reviews before buying something. It gives them additional information, for example about the quality or trustworthiness of the company or the product. If you have good reviews, consumers will be more likely to buy something from you. That is why it is important that consumers are able to rely on reviews. You cannot use consumer reviews to mislead consumers into buying something.

Online reviews

Reviews can offer consumers crucial information before buying something, for example information about the quality or trustworthiness of the business or the product. If you have good reviews, consumers will be more likely to buy something from you. That is why it is important that consumers are able to have confidence in reviews. You cannot use reviews to mislead consumers into making a purchase.

That is why there are rules in place for posting reviews or displaying consumer reviews. These rules also apply if you display testimonials or reviews by influencers, and also if you have another business collect reviews or if you embed reviews into your own website or app from another website (embedded reviews).

What is required and what is not allowed?

  • If you display reviews to consumers, tell them if you take any measures to ensure that the reviews are genuine. This means that the reviews must reflect the experiences of consumers that have actually bought or used the product.

  • Tell consumers what measures you take, such as technical, organizational, and legal measures. Examples of measures you can take: mandatory registration in order to be able to post reviews; using an automated detection system for recognizing suspicious patterns; a complaints procedure for reviews; rules for posting reviews and effective enforcement against violations.

  • Explain clearly how you deal with reviews, for example where they come from, whether any form of compensation was paid for reviews and how you calculate scores. All of this information must be clear, easy-to-understand and available in the same location where you display reviews.

  • Make sure that the businesses that you hire for collecting and posting consumer reviews online, comply with the rules too. If those businesses fail to do so, you could be partially held responsible if you did too little to prevent this.

  • Do not post any false reviews (‘fake reviews’) yourself, and do not have others do so either.

  • Do not present reviews in a misleading manner, for example by influencing the selection, the order or the presentation in general. Also, do not remove negative reviews only, while keeping positive ones.

  • Do not link reviews to a different product or different business than the one that consumers had intended.

  • Have you paid consumers or given them some other form of compensation for reviews, for example by allowing consumers to keep the product for free in exchange for a review? If so, clearly state that you display reviews for which consumers received some form of compensation.

  • Be careful not to harm the trustworthiness of reviews with the way you collect reviews. Exercise restraint in approaching consumers that have posted negative reviews to get them to change their reviews. In addition, be careful with holding out the prospect of compensation to consumers for writing or changing reviews. For example, you cannot use some form of compensation to press for a positive review that would mislead other consumers.

  • You cannot mislead consumers with average review scores, for example, by giving the impression that the average score is based solely on reviews of consumers that did not receive any compensation for them, even though this is factually untrue.

Tips

  • Give consumers some time to be able to review a product properly. For example, do not ask for a review right after the customer’s order or payment, but rather wait until they have received the product and have had a chance to try it.

Examples

Example: reviews without any checks

A website displays consumer reviews. On this website, various sellers sell products. There are reviews about the products as well as reviews about the sellers that offer those products. Visitors to the website are under the impression that these are real reviews.

However, the website’s provider does not do anything to ensure that only real reviews are displayed. That is not allowed. Businesses are required to take appropriate measures, and to inform consumers about what measures they are taking.

Example: reviews by non-existent people

A cosmetics company has a website. On the homepage, the company displays quotes of satisfied consumers that have given the product four or five stars (out of five stars). For example: “All of my skin problems disappeared within two weeks after using this product!’ and ‘I can highly recommend this! I will never use another product again!’.

However, it turns out that these reviews do not come from consumers that have actually bought or used the products. That is misleading, and is thus not allowed.

Relevant regulations

Explanation of regulations

Enforcement

ACM forced a company to stop misleading consumers. This company asked its clients to leave positive reviews, among other requests. In exchange, the company promised to pay back half of the costs. Therefore, the reviews left on Google and Trustpilot were not written under fair circumstances. Consumers that read these reviews can therefore be misled.

Recommendations

Consumers that wish to buy something often pay attention to online recommendations by other consumers. If a product or business has many likes, followers, comments, and pageviews on social media, consumers will be more likely to make a purchase. Consumers must therefore be able to rely on recommendations. You cannot use them to mislead consumers into making a purchase.

If a business has many followers on social media or if the business’s posts get many comments, views, or likes on social media, it will leave consumers with a positive impression. In addition, the post, product, or the business itself will sometimes get a higher ranking on online platforms or social media. As a result of the increased visibility and/or positive impression, consumers are more likely to make a purchase.

However, recommendations cannot be used to mislead consumers into making a purchase. That is why, there are rules for posting recommendations or for presenting recommendations in order to promote products. These rules apply to all types of recommendations by consumers that promote products. For example, think of likes, followers, comments, or pageviews.

What is required and what is not allowed?

  • Only post recommendations by consumers that have actually bought or used the product.

  • Only post recommendations with the product that is recommended.

  • Show all recommendations, both the positive and the negative ones.

  • Do not post any fake recommendations and do not have others post such either. Do not use fake followers, fake comments, or fake pageviews.

  • Do not post any misleading recommendations. Make sure that the way in which you present your recommendations does not put consumers on the wrong track, for example by showing the recommendations for one product also with another product.

  • Do not selectively choose which comments you do or do not show on your website, but rather show all comments. If you only post the positive comments but not the negative ones, consumers might wrongly get a positive impression.

Tips

  • Give consumers some time to be able to review a product properly. For example, do not ask for a review right after the customer’s order or payment, but rather wait until they have received the product and have had a chance to try it.

Examples

Example: increasing visibility on social media

You wish to increase the brand awareness of your business or product. To that end, you hire a business that can increase your visibility on social media. This business does so by adding extra likes, followers, and pageviews to your accounts and posts. In that context, the business uses fake accounts. These recommendations therefore do not reflect the actual experiences of real consumers. They are fake recommendations. This is misleading and is therefore not allowed.

Relevant regulations

Explanation of regulations

Enforcement

ACM imposed an order subject to periodic penalty payments on an influencer. The influencer had bought fake likes and fake followers to promote their products.

ACM warned businesses and influencers to stop using fake likes and fake followers.

More information: links and footnotes

Notifications regarding the behavior of other consumers

Consumers that wish to make a purchase often pay attention to the behavior of other consumers. If many consumers have bought or viewed the product, or already have it in their shopping carts, other consumers are more likely to buy it as well. Consumers must therefore be able to rely on the accuracy of these notifications. You cannot use such notifications to mislead consumers into making a purchase.

Businesses can indicate online what other consumers are doing or have done. Notifications about the behavior of other consumers can be presented in various ways. For example:

  • Notifications telling that other consumers just bought a product. For example: ‘Noortje and Joris just bought this headset’.
  • Notifications telling how many consumers have a certain item in their shopping carts. For example: ‘46 people currently have this dress in their shopping carts’.
  • Notifications telling how many people are currently on the website, for example: ‘This website currently has 287 visitors’.
  • Notifications telling how many consumers are currently looking at a certain product, for example: ’12 people are currently looking at this hotel’.
  • Notifications telling how many consumers have bought a particular product, for example: ‘Over 3,000 of this product have been sold’, or more in the abstract: ‘This is the best-selling product on this website’.

Such notifications may influence the behavior of consumers. Consumers may be inclined to copy others’ choices, especially when they are in doubt. They believe a business or product is good if others believe that too. That is why this is also called ‘social proof’. Businesses also use these kinds of notifications to capitalize on a sense of scarcity. For example, they give the impression that the product is popular among other consumers, or that the product will be sold out soon if consumers do not take action fast enough.

As a result, consumers may take a less critical look at a product and may be less inclined to compare products. They will choose and buy something much sooner. That is why it is important that consumers are able to rely on notifications about the actions of other consumers. Such notifications cannot be used to mislead consumers into making a purchase. That is why certain rules apply if you use such notifications.

What is required and what is not allowed?

  • Only use notifications about actions by other consumers if they are complete and true. For example, if a consumer is checking the availability of a hotel room, make sure that the notification about the actions of other consumers is about the same hotel and the same date.

  • Do not give a false impression about the popularity of a product, for example by suggesting that 300 people are viewing the same product at the same time, while, in reality, those 300 people are just the total number of website visitors at that moment.

Tips

  • Test whether your notifications are fully understood by consumers and that consumers do not feel pressured into making a purchase.

Examples

Example: leaving out important information

A consumer looks for an airline ticket. He enters a date and time of the flight on a website with airline tickets. Next to one of the search results, the website adds the following notification: ‘76 people are currently looking at this flight’.

The notification gives the impression that the flight for that particular date and time is viewed by 76 people, whereas those 76 people are looking at flights on all possible dates and all possible times. The notification is thus misleading and is not allowed.

Example: randomly generated notifications

A toy store hires a business to increase the conversion rate on its website. The business adds a functionality on its website, which adds random notifications about the actions of others to products. For example, the following notification is added to a toy: ‘15 people are currently looking at this item’.

That is not true, however. No one else was looking at that item at that moment. This is misleading and is therefore not allowed.

 

Example: incomplete notifications

A business offers hotel rooms online. On the website, a consumer enters the dates when they need a hotel room. The options they see are available on those dates. The following notification is added to those options: ‘6 people are currently looking at this hotel room’. This wrongfully gives the impression that many people are looking at the hotel room on the dates that the consumer has entered.

However, the notification concerns the total number of people that are looking at the hotel room, regardless of the dates. This is thus a misleading notification, and is not allowed.

Relevant regulations

Explanation of regulations

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