Have you wondered whether the online review of a particular product or service is genuine, or given by someone who had or would have earned some reward for a “positive review”?
Keeping in mind the scope for fraudulency in such reviews, and with an aim to ensure transparency and help consumers ascertain whether the reviews they read are authentic, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has proposed a solution.
The BIS, as per a Business Standard report, has suggested that online sites must not consider ratings collected with rewards when calculating the overall rating of a product or service.
In a draft revising the ‘Standards on Online Consumer Reviews: Principles and Requirements for Their Collection, Moderation and Publication’, the BIS suggested that reviews obtained through “rewards” should have a separate rating system, to distinguish them from “real” reviews, the report stated.
The guidelines also noted that the beneficiaries of the reviews obtained through rewards have to be selected through an unbiased process. A method has also been devised to determine whether the consumer reviewer is a “real person” and to verify the authenticity of their contact information.
Moreover, the review and the reviewer must be selected “unbiasedly” and must meet all terms and conditions, otherwise, they should be flagged for further investigation.
The draft also elucidated what constituted a reward or “reward programme”. The publication listed that a “reward” might imply product-testing, wherein a product might be lent to a consumer to use for a period of time in exchange for a review. It can also take the form of cash, products or prizes.
As per the report, the move will “have a far-reaching impact in the online space, as reviews form a key element in a consumer’s decision to buy,” and reviews are peppered across most e-commerce sites be it “food delivery, lifestyle, clothing, and groceries, and a multitude of services”.
Stakeholders have been asked to provide their comments on the draft by November 10.