Bureau of Indian Standards Announced New Guidelines To Prevent 'Fake Reviews'

New Guidelines To Prevent Fake Reviews: On Wednesday at a meeting held by the Consumer Affairs department, spokespersons from Amazon, Flipkart, Google, Facebook, and many other e-commerce companies attended the meeting in which a plan was discussed to prevent ‘fake reviews.’

The meeting was attended by about 150 stakeholders including 15 e-platform companies, government agencies, legal experts, and consumer campaigners.

During the meeting, the department proposed quality control over orders by implementing the IS 19000:2022 standard on customer reviews.

What did the Bureau of Indian Standards Department say on Fake reviews?

In a statement, the Consumer Affairs Department,”The discussion on moving towards a Quality Control Order for IS 19000:2022 was welcomed by stakeholders and there was a general consensus among all stakeholders that the issue of fake reviews is important to protect consumer interest while shopping online, and requires to be closely monitored,"

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The statement further added, "The presence of fake reviews online jeopardises the trustworthiness of platforms and can lead to wrong purchase decisions.”

Secretary of the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), Nidhi Khare, spoke with India Today TV in which she said that the percentage of such fake reviews on e-commerce sites has gone up from 18 to 43 percent in 2023.

For people doing online shopping, the reviews sections are crucial for them as from the opinion of others it gives thorough inspection of the product, whether it would be suitable for them or not.

The IS 19000:2022 standard on Consumer reviews will prevent the manipulation of reviews by removing all anonymous reviews, restricting sites to subduing negative comments, and preventing alteration of reviews after submission.

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According to a 2022 official report from Amazon that says it found around 10,000 Facebook groups were created to buy fake reviews on behalf of free products or money.

At the meeting, consumer organizer Pushpa Girimji supported the idea, she expressed how important it was to implement these rules to fight the problem of fake reviews.

According to the reports, all the e-commerce companies only have six months to implement the 19000:2022 standard on their consumer reviews.

If any e-commerce companies fail to follow the guidelines then it will be considered against fair trade practices under the CCPA Act.

Thus, such big developments from the Consumer Affairs department, will surely prevent buying of fake reviews and ensure organic content for the people.

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