Amazon and a number of platforms including Booking, TripAdvisor and Expedia Group have announced a partnership aimed at combating fake online reviews.
Amazon, Booking, TripAdvisor, Expedia Group, Trustpilot and Glassdoor have joined forces to launch the world's first coalition for trusted reviews. The aim of the six groups is to combat fake reviews and block them at source.
At a meeting in October 2022 in San Francisco, hosted by TripAdvisor, the companies attended a conference where experts from government, academia and industry spoke about common challenges and approaches to tackling fake reviews and the problems they cause on a global scale.
This led to the creation of a formal coalition to help educate the public and share information on an ongoing basis between members to reduce notice fraud.
Commitments across the board
To protect consumers and partners against fake reviews, the group is keen to ensure that the public is not misled by fraudulent content. The partners will pool their technical expertise to develop common standards and definitions to establish what constitutes a fake review, nomenclatures, and moderation measures for certain content. The members of the coalition have also agreed to mobilise around a number of key areas:
working with academics and public decision-makers to promote the importance of content moderation to consumers;
sharing best practice: in terms of hosting online reviews and sharing content moderation information (detecting false reviews);
sharing information: by deciphering the modus operandi of fraudulent actors, such as selling fake reviews to companies, or improperly enhancing their reputation.
Maintaining the authenticity of reviews and protecting consumers
The coalition is also committed to respecting standards of integrity, transparency and responsibility. In the long term, this collaboration will make it possible to maintain the authenticity of reviews and thus build the confidence of consumers around the world.
"Through increased collaboration and sharing across industries, including information about fraudsters' tactics and modus operandi, we can more effectively stop fraudulent review activity, deter other malicious actors from trying to game our systems and protect more consumers," said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon's Vice President of Global Channel Partner Services.