Is It Illegal to Post Fake Positive Reviews for a Company

Are fake reviews illegal? An interview with specialist attorney Karsten Gulden

In this part of our web log series, we'll testify you how to assess fake reviews from a legal perspective.

After we've taken a general wait at the topic of fake ratings in the first part of our weblog series, nosotros would at present like to examine the legal aspects. Nosotros've asked an expert who is familiar with the topic of Internet ratings. Karsten Gulden, LL.Thou. - lawyer specializing in copyright and media law in Mainz answers our questions most fake ratings and legal consequences. He explains questions about liability and possible consequences for companies that buy positive ratings as well as those who desire to harm competitors using negative ratings. In improver, we examine the question whether online ratings can be trusted at all, and what consumers can do most fake ratings.

Cheater's package: Buy or scheme your way to positive ratings.

Buying ratings, or simply giving yourself 5 stars. Is this merely a pocket-sized heave to ane'south paradigm, or can information technology be legally problematic?

Positive imitation reviews from non-customers may be a small-scale epitome boost, since outset impressions count, and expert ratings certainly make for a proficient impression. As a rule, customers don't really run across who wrote the review. Nonetheless, fake reviews are not welcomed either by the portal operators, nor by the customers, whom they deceive. There are also legal bug with fake ratings. Companies that utilize fake ratings ordinarily violate the Terms of Use of the review platform. This tin can pb to suspension. In improver, this form of behavior is anti-competitive. This means, that warning notices from competitors are a existent threat.

Bought comments and ratings are oftentimes easy to spot because they follow a template. Who is responsible for this?

Those selling simulated reviews is liable just like the company buying them to brandish on their contour. Consumer protection groups and competitors can study companies that nowadays themselves with fake ratings on the web. It is also possible that the ratings platforms and companies that warn sellers and users of fake reviews can even claim damages.

Negative faux ratings from competitors and trolls

What can companies do about negative fake ratings from the contest?

It is easy to go into counterattack confronting your competition. Competitors can be warned and exist forced to end their tactics of using fake ratings in the future. This can get expensive for the warned companies, since they are responsible for the alarm costs. The biggest obstacle is proof. Those wishing to get the contest served with a notice, has to be able to evidence that they use fake ratings.

Letting out anger over the concluding machine purchase, at your competition or one-time service provider: when does expressed opinion turn into defamation or even abuse?

Punishable statements are defamation, libel and slander. Likewise punishable are statements whose sole purpose is to portray the rated company in a negative low-cal without any objective connection to the products and services. This must be proved on an individual ground.

In which cases is it recommended that a company get a lawyer?

Companies should notice a lawyer if damaging ratings cannot be removed with minimal effort. Engaging the services of a lawyer has been proved to be the fastest and most economic way of protecting a company's reputation.

Online ratings: Trust, consumer protection and activeness recommendations

You employ ProvenExpert yourself. Do you think that consumers tin trust online ratings?

There is no guaranteed trust in ratings. You lot also accept to keep in mind that many real ratings are very emotional and can contain exaggerations.

But consumers can trust their overall picture of the business. If you take the time to acquire about a company, you will see the many sides from which it has been reviewed. And then, consumers will usually get an authentic overall moving picture.

What can users exercise about obviously imitation ratings on review platforms?

Consumers can also pass on information to the ratings portals and consumer protection groups.

Cheers for the interview, Mr. Gulden!

You can find the review contour of gulden röttger | police function here.

Want to have command over your reputation? Manage your reviews with ease on ProvenExpert now.

Nigh PROVENEXPERT

ProvenExpert is the online platform for qualified customer feedback and review aggregation. A tool that enables business owners and service providers of all sizes to actively seek customer reviews with manufacture-specific survey templates, bundle existing customer reviews in one location and present the overall score in a way that makes it more effective. Already more than 270,000 entrepreneurs and service providers of all sizes do good from ProvenExpert.

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Source: https://blog.provenexpert.com/en/fake-reviews-specialist-attorney-gulden-interview/