Amazon lawsuit sets important precedent against fake reviews

20th October, 2015 – New York – London – Melbourne – Copenhagen – This week Amazon announced it is taking legal action against more than 1,100 people it says have been paid to write fake, online reviews. It follows a lawsuit from April this year, where Amazon sought to shut down four paid review sites that offered fake, four and five-star reviews of its products.

“Trustpilot strongly supports Amazon’s actions and the recent lawsuit sets an important precedent against fake reviews. The debate surrounding fake reviews is at the forefront of our industry, and it’s more important than ever to safeguard the consumer’s trust in online reviews,” says Trustpilot’s Head of Trust and Transparency, Kasper Heine.

Trustpilot’s work to remove fake review ads
Defendants from the most recent Amazon case used fiverr.com to sell fake, positive reviews. Along with a host of other initiatives, Trustpilot’s 35 strong Compliance team continually monitors a variety of platforms, including fiverr.com, where fake reviews are either offered or sought after. Once identified, the site host is contacted, which generally leads to the advertisement’s removal. In many cases, it also leads to the removal of freelancer profiles that offer fake reviews in return for payment.

“Advertising for and composing fake reviews not only undermines the foundation of Trustpilot, but of the online review industry as a whole. It’s crucial that we stand together to fight fake reviews, and we hope our recent initiative to gather the review industry in the UK will help kickstart this process,” says Kasper Heine.

In line with Trustpilot’s zero-tolerance policy against review manipulation Trustpilot posts consumer alerts and terminates agreements with companies, where continuous suspicious behaviour is detected.

About Trustpilot
Founded in 2007 by CEO Peter Holten Mühlmann, Trustpilot is a global, multi-language review community that builds trust and transparency between consumers and businesses. Currently boasting more than 14 million consumer reviews of 115,000 businesses, Trustpilot produces a TrustScore for businesses based on recent reviews. Every day, more than 10,000 consumers sign up on Trustpilot, and every month, 500.000 new reviews are posted on the community.

Trustpilot has customers in 65 countries and has developed strong positions in Denmark, Sweden, the U.K., France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as the U.S. The company is located in New York, London, Copenhagen and Melbourne, and its employee base has increased from 168 people in 2013 to its current count of more than 450 employees representing 40 nationalities.

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