Amazon, Booking and Expedia take action against fake reviews

Amazon has now formed an alliance with the travel platforms Expedia Group, also registered in Seattle, and Booking Holding from Norfolk, USA. These world's largest OTAs (online travel agencies) are suffering, just like Amazon, from image damage due to corrupted or bogus user ratings.

These three American delegations combine a concentrated market power and are coming to Europe in early December to act as an alliance worldwide to protect trustworthy consumer reviews in general and thus their own image. The leading review platforms for travel, Tripadvisor, for online services, Trustpilot, and for job advertisements, Glassdoor, are also part of the alliance. Last October, these big players met in San Francisco to develop methods to detect fake user reviews on platforms. In the first step of this Coalition for Trusted Reviews, industry standards and definitions were developed and information was exchanged between the competitors in order to be able to act jointly and systematically against such fraudulent practices.

The accusation of doing practically nothing against fake reviews has been around for years. In 2019, the European Union updated an Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) that, among other things, protects consumers from misleading reviews. A market survey in the EU - a so-called "sweep" - revealed in 2022 that 55% of all websites do nothing about fake reviews. Countless warnings were issued and enforcement agencies (of the CPC) took website operators to task for doing something about it. The group around Amazon wants to meet in Brussels in early December to concretise further action. They are committed to the highest standards of integrity, transparency and accountability and will work with academics and policymakers. After such big words, we as consumer advocates are naturally eager to see concrete action.

The fact that these are all American corporations meeting in Brussels shows two sides of the same coin. On the downside, that Europe lags behind in the leading online business as a mere customer region and cannot involve its own companies in this global initiative. On the other hand, on the front side, it shines that the venue Brussels as the source of the strict European consumer protection and data protection rules is not merely to highlight the global aspect of the effort, but rather that these protective mechanisms of the EU indirectly show their clear effect on the world market.