U.S. retailers preparing customer-review campaigns have an October 21, 2024 start date for the Federal Trade Commission’s new reviews rule, published August 22. The rule prohibits offering money or other incentives in exchange for reviews required to express a particular sentiment, positive or negative. It does not ban every reward for writing a review. The invitation, incentive disclosure and review display need separate checks. [S2][S3]
The wording of a request matters. Section 465.4 covers conditions stated explicitly or conveyed by implication. In its explanation, the FTC rejects the idea that an invitation to describe how much a customer loved a product, tied to a discount, is harmless merely because the business would also reward a negative review. A customer could understand the message as requiring praise. By contrast, the agency says a neutral request to write a review in return for a discount does not imply that condition simply because businesses prefer positive feedback. Changing the reward terms while leaving that email unchanged would not fix the message customers receive. [S2]
A neutral invitation is not the end of the analysis. The FTC’s revised Endorsement Guides, effective July 26, 2023, describe a marketer giving ordinary consumers a free automotive product and $30 to post a review. In that example, reviewers can be negative without consequences, but a review that fails to disclose the incentives clearly and conspicuously is still likely deceptive. The Guides explain the agency’s interpretation of the FTC Act; they are not the same instrument as the new reviews rule. Together, the documents separate freedom to criticize from the buyer’s ability to see that a review was rewarded. [S2][S3]
The disclosure may need to reach beyond the individual review. In the same 2023 example, the FTC says even properly disclosed incentivized reviews could make an average star rating deceptive if including those reviews materially raises the average. In that case, the marketer would likely need a clear disclosure for people who see the average rating. A disclosure inside a review does not necessarily reach a shopper who looks only at the product’s average score. The example identifies a possible misleading presentation, not a ban on combining every incentivized review with other ratings. [S3]
The new rule also addresses how retailers remove reviews. Section 465.7 bars a business from materially representing, explicitly or implicitly, that a review area shows most or all submitted reviews while withholding reviews because of their ratings or negative sentiment. It permits sentiment-neutral moderation criteria applied equally to all submitted reviews, including criteria covering another person’s personal information, abusive content, reviews reasonably believed to be fake or material wholly unrelated to the products or services offered. A shop can moderate reviews without presenting a selection stripped of criticism as its full customer record. [S2]
Delivery complaints need particular care. The 2023 Guides’ retail example says customer service, delivery, returns and exchanges are related to a seller’s products and services. A negative delivery review therefore cannot simply be treated as unrelated because it does not discuss the item’s physical features. The same example allows a policy against profanity but says it would be misleading to block negative reviews containing profanity while posting positive ones that contain it. A moderation policy needs to govern the favorable reviews too. [S2][S3]
Screening customers before inviting them to post is a separate issue. The FTC describes review gating as asking past purchasers for feedback and then inviting only those with positive feedback to post online reviews. Its 2024 explanation says that practice is outside Section 465.4, but can still violate Section 5 of the FTC Act. Removing a praise-for-reward condition from an email would not, by itself, resolve a workflow that sends the public-review invitation only to satisfied customers. [S2]
Source documents
- Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials — final rulehttps://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-08-22/html/2024-18519.htm
- Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising — revised Guideshttps://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-07-26/html/2023-14795.htm