Tech giants like Meta and Google, as well as locally developed platforms like Zomato and Flipkart, will now face closer scrutiny of product reviews on their respective platforms as a result of the new Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) guidelines going into effect to protect customers from fake online reviews of products.
The guidelines, which provide a specified responsibility for the review writer and the review manager, went online on Friday and will now affect all online platforms where post-consumer reviews.
The new standards, compiled by BIS, are following several complaints to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs about fake ratings of articles published by e-commerce companies on social media and on their platforms.
“The new guidelines for online reviews are designed to drive increased transparency for both consumers and brands and promote information accuracy”
– Sachin Taparia
After the new Directives, both consumers and vendors reported a few issues with online reviews.
“In traveling platforms, it’s standard for hotels to invite bloggers and influencers for free, and to give them a” nice write “rating, but” in the future, the platforms will have to allow for the disclosure of any sponsored reviews so that consumers are aware of that.”
Apple and Google must now make commitments over reviews these app developers have sponsored reviews.
Some reported “problems” were false positive reviews made by vendors/vendors themselves to mislead consumers and false negative reviews made by vendors/vendors to dissuade consumers from organizations.
Infringement of new standards by a company can be considered unfair commercial practice or a breach of consumer rights, and a consumer may make such complaints of them to the National Consumer Advisory Service (NCC) or the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) under the Department for Consumer Affairs.
Image Credit:Zomato
