Food delivery giant Just Eat, funeral firm Dignity and motor platform Autotrader are among five firms under investigation by the UK’s competition watchdog as part of its crackdown on fake and misleading online reviews.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had launched probes against the companies – also including customer review and feedback firm Feefo and Pasta Evangelists – to see whether consumer laws have been broken.
Since April last year, companies have been banned from certain tactics around online reviews under law, such as fake posts, paid-for reviews that are not clearly marked as incentivised, as well as for hiding negative feedback.
Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said: “Fake reviews strike at the heart of consumer trust – with many of us worrying about misleading content when looking at reviews online.
“With household budgets under pressure, people need to know they’re getting genuine information – not reviews or star ratings that have been manipulated to push them towards the wrong choice.
“We’ve given businesses the time to get things right. Now we’re deploying our new powers to tackle some of the most harmful practices head on.”
