The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has urged businesses to do more to ensure that they comply with their obligations to prevent fake and misleading reviews under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA).

The call from the CMA comes after a review of a number of organisations to determine if they had procedures in place that comply with the new fake reviews guidance, published by the CMA three months ago. Despite providing for a period for organisations to make changes and embed new practices – and the CMA offering support in that period to help businesses comply with the new rules – the CMA found that over a half were still non-compliant.

In response, the CMA is urging organisations to review its fake reviews guidance. The user-friendly guidance contains explanations of the key concepts and operation of the new prohibition on fake and so-called ‘concealed incentivised’ reviews under the DMCCA, as well as the ‘reasonable and proportionate’ steps that traders are expected to take to prevent and remove such reviews.

In particular, the guidance makes clear that businesses are required to, among other things, have policies which prohibit fake reviews, and which set out their approach both to the prevention and removal of misleading consumer information, incentivised reviews, and consumer review information. Publishers should also conduct risk assessments to assess the risks that consumers may encounter banned reviews and false or misleading consumer review information, and have policies in place to detect, investigate, and take action in response.

A helpful diagram of the steps that businesses would be expected to follow is provided by the CMA as follows:

To help those businesses which publish customer reviews understand their obligations under the new law, the CMA is holding a webinar on 4 September. To read more, click here. To read the Guidance in full, click here.