The Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA), under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, on Monday issued guidelines to curb fake and deceptive reviews on e-commerce platforms.
As per the guidelines, e-commerce players like Amazon and Flipkart will have to voluntarily disclose all paid consumer reviews of products and services offered on their platforms, with the government bringing in new norms to curb fake reviews and help buyers make informed decisions.
Union Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh on Monday said the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has formulated a new standard ‘IS 19000:2022’ for Online Consumer Reviews —Principles and Requirement for their Collection, Moderation and Publication’. Consumers should not be allowed to edit their reviews and use foul language.
However, the government has barred publication of reviews that “have been purchased and/or written by individuals employed for that purpose by the supplier or third party concerned”.
The secretary said that companies like Zomato, Swiggy, Reliance Retail, Tata Sons, Amazon, Flipkart, Google, Meta, Mesho, Blinkit and Zepto were part of the consultation process and they have assured compliance with these standards. Industry bodies like CII, FICCI, Assocham, Nasscom, ASCI, NRAI and CAIT were also consulted while formulating the standards.
Under the guidelines, platforms will be required to set up review administrators to moderate reviews using automated tools or manually to filter out biases and restrict fraudulent reviews. The reviews should also include the publishing date and star rating, the guidelines said
The BIS standards, prepared after extensive stakeholder consultations and to be effective from November 25, will be voluntary but the government will consider making them mandatory in case the menace of fake reviews continues on the online
platforms.
The standards will be applicable to any organisation which publishes consumer reviews online, including suppliers of products and services that collect reviews from their own customers, a third party contracted by the supplier or an independent third party.
Singh said the BIS will come out with a certification process within the next 15 days to check whether an organisation is complying with these standards. E-commerce players can apply for the certification of this standard with the BSI.
“We are probably the first country in the world to formulate standard for online reviews,” Singh said.
