One of the attractions of online commerce is the possibility of choosing a product based on whether the evaluations of other buyers who have tried it are positive. However, you should not always trust these opinions as there may be deception. For this reason, the American electronic commerce giant Amazon has decided to file a lawsuit for the first time in Spain against pages that trade with false reviews.
Specifically, it has denounced the Reviews Agency, based in the Spanish State, which targets sellers and customers of the e-commerce platform with whom "it would communicate through third-party instant messaging services to avoid rigorous controls from Amazon," the company said in a statement. As it has been able to conclude in its investigations, the reported agency would obtain false reviews and five-star ratings on some products that are sold in the Amazon store in exchange for reimbursing the consumer for the amount paid for a product.
The lawsuit is part of the company's strategy in its fight against this global phenomenon and constitutes one of the first actions filed in Spain in this matter after the recent modification of the Unfair Competition Law. In parallel, the company has filed a complaint in Italy against a "very relevant" review trading page from this other European country. In this case, the alleged offending company "claimed to have a network of people willing to buy products on Amazon and publish a five-star review in exchange for a full refund of the price of the product," the platform has detailed, adding that the Conviction for this type of activity could lead to prison sentences and fines in Italy.
In addition to these actions, the platform has filed ten new lawsuits in the United States against review trading pages and other infringers who tried to tamper with Amazon's store rating systems. It also sent warning letters to five German-based websites that directed visitors to a page selling rigged valuations. As a consequence of this, the five websites agreed to stop this activity by signing a cease and desist letter.
"There is no room for fake reviews on Amazon, or anywhere else in the retail distribution chain," warned Dharmesh Mehta, Global Vice President of Seller Services for the US e-commerce giant. In this regard, the platform ensures that devotes part of its resources to fighting against this type of practice.
This set of legal actions comes after the platform last year asked social networks for collaboration to identify false reviews that aim to praise a product or sink it.
