The Federal Trade Commission charged a company offering an AI-enabled consumer review platform deceived consumers by misrepresenting that ratings and reviews it published came from customers who experienced the reviewed product or service, artificially inflating average ratings and review counts.

Under a proposed order settling the agency’s complaint, the company, will be prohibited from making such misrepresentations in the future and from making other misrepresentations about consumer ratings or reviews.

“Platforms don’t have free rein to mislead people about the consumer reviews shown for companies and their products,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Along with our rule on fake reviews and testimonials, cases like this one show that we’ll act to stop all forms of deception in the review ecosystem.”

According to the FTC’s complaint, GGL Projects, Inc., which does business as Sitejabber, collected ratings and reviews for its online business clients from consumers at the time of purchase, before they received or had the chance to experience the products or services they bought. For example, after online customers checked out, they were asked to “rate your overall shopping experience so far” on a 5-star scale and then to “type a quick message about your shopping experience so far.”

The FTC states Sitejabber allegedly used these point-of-sale ratings and reviews to deceptively inflate the average ratings and review counts of its clients on the company’s review platform, claiming that the ratings “indicat[e] that most customers are generally satisfied with their purchases.” Sitejabber’s “inflated” ratings and review counts were also displayed in Google and other search results.

According to Wikipedia, Sitejabber is an AI-enabled platform that allows businesses and buyers to interact through online reviews. Sitejabber was founded in 2007 and has been described as “the Yelp for websites and online businesses”. Sitejabber rebranded the reputation management platform part of its service in 2023, under the name Jabio.

Sitejabber was originally developed with a grant from the National Science Foundation. In 2010, Sitejabber partnered with LegitScript to identify fraudulent prescription drug websites and help users avoid them. Sitejabber also formed a similar partnership with Health On Net (HON) to help identify trustworthy health and medical websites.

More here.

IMAGE: Sitejabber website