Why is the UK competition watchdog planning a probe against Amazon and Google?

The Competition and Market Authority is a regulator for competition related to the business in the United Kingdom. The Authority was founded in the year 2013 and has its headquarters in London. The organization is responsible for preventing and reducing the anti competitive activities and for strengthening the business competition. The CMA has accused Google and Amazon of fake reviews and in this article let’s look at further information regarding it.

United Kingdom Regulators – Latest News
UK Regulators Investigation against Amazon Google Fake Reviews
Response from Amazon and Google on its Fake Reviews
FAQ

United Kingdom Regulators – Latest News

The United Kingdom Watch Dog has accused the biggest tech companies Amazon and Google in relation to fake reviews on their platform for the goods and services. The UK regulators had stated on 2 July 2021 that they are looking into Amazon and Google in relation to it.

The regulatory has said that online giants are not taking enough steps or putting the required efforts in order to stop the fake reviewing of products and services on their platform.

The CMA has also conveyed that they had conducted an initial inquiry last year and had raised a lot of concerns in relation to whether the companies had been doing the required amount of work in order to detect the fake reviews for their products and services on their platforms and removing them quickly from their websites.

UK Regulators Investigation against Amazon Google Fake Reviews

The UK Regulators have conveyed to have started an investigation into Google and Amazon in relation to the fake review on the products and services. The Competition and Markets Authority has said that they have started a formal investigation in order to analyze whether the major tech giants have broken the consumer law of the UK by failing to protect their customers or shoppers.

It is reported that in the previous year amidst the boom in the e-commerce industry due to the pandemic the UK regulators had looked into some top e-commerce platforms in relation to fake reviews without identifying any specific ones.

Andrea Coscelli who is the Chief Executive of the Regulatory Authority of UK said in a press statement that the only worry of the regulator is about the consumer who would mislead by looking at the fake review and would purchase the product by spending their hard-earned money and later realize that it was not worth it.

The Chief Executive also added that it is equally not fair that certain businesses can go against the laws and provide 5 star reviews on their products and services making them stand out and in the meanwhile, the businesses that follow the laws and regulations would lose out.

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Response from Amazon and Google on its Fake Reviews

Both the companies Google and Amazon have said that they would work together and provide the support to the UK Regulators with their investigation.

Google has conveyed that the strict policies of the company have a clear statement that the reviews provided on the services and products should be based on real experiences and genuine ones and added that the company would soon take action and remove the abusive contents to even disabling the user accounts if they find any policy violators.

Amazon also stated that even the company focuses on removing the fake reviews from their e-commerce websites and also avoid fake and incentivized reviews from appearing on their store as it would help in earning the trust of their customers.

Conclusion

Amazon has already been accused in the past of fake reviews on their products. The company has also taken specific measures in relation to it with certain Chinese products and companies. However, we will have to wait for the investigation in order to get much more clarity into it.

FAQ

Does Google take down fake reviews?

Google only remove reviews that it sees to be in direct violation of their policies. It may be that there is insufficient evidence to determine whether the review is legitimate or not.

What percent of Amazon reviews are fake?

According to the December 2018 findings, the supplements category had the highest share of fake product reviews on Amazon, with a reported 64 percent of reviews being considered fake.

Are fake Amazon reviews illegal?

In several countries, paying people to conduct fake reviews is an illegal practice that damages the rights of consumers.