The British Competition Regulator on Friday opened a formal investigation into Google and Google Alphabet on concerns about major technology officials who have not done enough to combat false reviews in their areas.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it would gather more information to determine whether firms could violate consumer law by taking inadequate measures to protect consumers from fraudulent reviews.
The move comes in the wake of the first CMA investigation, which opened in May 2020, and examined the systems and internal processes of the identification platforms and to address false positives.
The regulator said it was also worrying that Amazon programs had failed to adequately prevent and prevent other retailers from cheating the product list, for example to include positive reviews from other products.
“Our concern is that millions of online consumers may be misled by reading illegal reviews and spending their money according to those recommendations,” said CMA chief Andrea Coscelli.
“Equally, it is simply not right for some businesses to do the trick of a five-star review to give their products the most outstanding products, while law-abiding businesses lose out.”
