Trustpilot , a well-known platform for publishing and finding reviews for businesses , was forced to remove millions of listings submitted in 2021 due to fraud. These are essentially fake reviews, which according to Trustpilot itself, increased compared to 2020.
The data comes from Trustpilot's latest Transparency Report . It's not clear what factors caused the increase in removals: more reviews posted last year, more fraud on the site, or more accurate detection of fake reviews.
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Trustpilot said 1.8 million of those review removals were due to detections from its own technology (a 19% increase from the previous year). The company has invested in software detection fraud to effectively weed out fake reviews. The site also issued 121,048 warnings in 2021 (a threefold increase compared to 2020).
The company also routinely places warning banners on company profile pages that do not follow appropriate standards, while also notifying consumers when misuse has been detected on the page, etc.
Trustpilot takes several factors into account when trying to assess a review as real or fake. In terms of fake reviews, Trustpilot includes reviews that the business itself leaves on its profile page, paid reviews, content that is considered promotional, harmful or illegal, or reviews that are not based on real experiences. The platform also removes reviews that are published on competitor sites with the aim of creating low ratings.
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“Trust in reviews remains absolutely critical to ensuring that consumers can make better decisions and businesses can demonstrate their commitment to providing a good customer,” said the company’s founder and CEO, Peter Muhlmann.
“Any attempts to manipulate and undermine trust in our platform cannot and will not be tolerated… Over the past year, we have continued to make significant investments and advances in technologies . This helps us take increasingly confident action against those who break the rules,” he said, adding: “As our report shows, we are committed to rooting out bad actors and protecting the integrity of our platform.”
On the other hand, fake reviews online are a growing problem and Trustpilot could not escape it.
In February, the company launched its first legal action against a company accused of soliciting fake reviews to boost its online position.
See also: How to check for fake product reviews on Amazon and other sites?
A few words about Trustpilot
Trustpilot was founded in 2007 and is a digital platform that wants to bring businesses and consumers together “to strengthen trust and inspire collaboration” (as it says on its site).
The site hosts reviews to help consumers shop with confidence, while businesses can also derive useful information from these reviews to improve the experiences they offer.
Source: www.infosecurity-magazine.com
