Centre To Come Up With Solutions To Fight Fake Reviews On E-Commerce Platforms

In a bid to counter the menace of fake reviews on e-commerce platforms, the Department of Consumer Affairs will come up with a roadmap to ensure that only legitimate reviews are visible to consumers. Fake reviews often mislead customers into buying online products and services.

Along with officials from the Consumer Affairs Department, others from concerned stakeholders like E-Commerce entities, several consumer forums, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), Law Universities, Lawyers, FICCI, CII, and Consumer Rights Activists were also involved.

Rohit Kumar Singh, the Secretary for Consumer Affairs, said, "Traceability by ensuring the authenticity of the reviewer and the associated liability of the platform are the two key issues here. Also, e-commerce players must disclose how they choose the 'most relevant reviews' for display fairly and transparently", The Hindu reported.

Moreover, all the stakeholders agreed that an issue needed to be addressed, and there was a need to develop an appropriate framework to tackle fake reviews and ensure consumer satisfaction.

Frameworks To Be Developed After Studying Present Mechanism

The stakeholders discussed issues like fake reviews, paid reviews, unverifiable reviews, and the absence of disclosure in case of incentivised reviews make it challenging for consumers to recognise genuine reviews.

The official statement from the Union government's department mentioned that the necessary frameworks would be developed after studying the present mechanism that e-commerce websites follow in India and identifying the best global practices for the same.

On the other hand, the e-commerce entities mentioned that they already have their mechanisms to verify reviews; however, 'they did not mind collaborating with the government for the same'. Since the virtual shopping experience does not allow consumers to examine the product, they rely heavily on reviews while deciding on their purchase.

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