$5 for a good online review? No way, says new FTC rule

The new rule, finalized this month and set to go into effect later this year, prohibits a slew of practices including: providing incentives for reviews that convey a particular sentimentreviews and testimonials by company insiders that don’t disclose the authors’ connection to the brandsuppressing unflattering reviewsreviews and testimonials attributed to people who haven’t used the product or aren’t real “The role of reviews is increasingly important in almost all of our purchase decisions," said Sandy Jap, a marketing professor at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. “When you say you’re going to hold companies responsible for fake reviews that they know about on their website, that’s one thing," said Lartease Tiffith, executive vice president for public policy at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a digital media and marketing trade association. “If you’re going to hold companies responsible for fake reviews they should have known about, that’s different." Marketing trade group Association of National Advertisers had also submitted comments pushing back on the provision last year, saying that a “should have known" standard for the failure to uncover the deception of third parties would be “tremendously costly" and discourage companies from allowing reviews or testimonials on their websites at all.