Tim Bonner: The law falls short on stopping malicious fake reviews

Malicious fake reviews on sites like Tripadvisor can have devastating consequences for rural businesses and campaigns encouraging their use have become a regular tactic of animal rights extremists. Targeted attacks on pubs, hotels and other businesses that support hunting, shooting or even just meat production have become sadly common, and the consequences can be huge. Many businesses now live or die on the basis of their online reputation and customer reviews are the biggest single driver of custom for pubs and hotels in particular.

In 2023 we lobbied the last government to address this growing menace, and supportive peers moved amendments to the Online Safety Bill. The government responded by stating that this issue would be addressed in an upcoming Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill. We were unhappy at the time and concerned that Ministers did not fully understand the scale of the problem or even fully grasp the full seriousness of actions that have the potential to devastate businesses.

Unfortunately, that concern was borne out by the progress of the Digital Markets Bill which became law in the scramble to sign off legislation before last year’s surprise general election. The Act does address fake reviews, but whilst it makes it illegal for businesses to post positive fake reviews about their own products, it does nothing to stop extremists posting false information about businesses and their products. This is in addition to the false communications offence created by the Online Safety Bill which a person commits if they send a message conveying information that they know to be false, and which they intend to “cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm”. There is no offence, however, in posting information that is known to be false with the intention of causing economic harm.

Parliament has therefore accepted the power of online reviews to influence consumers and legislated to prohibit fake reviews posted for commercial benefit. It has also legislated to make it illegal to post false information intending to cause physical or psychological harm, but neither of these laws addresses the posting of malicious reviews designed to damage the profitability of businesses for ideological reasons.

This is a serious and unacceptable omission made worse by the fact that it was raised with Ministers in the last government on numerous occasions and that they committed to addressing exactly this issue. The current government seems at least to understand the seriousness of the problem. In welcoming the introduction of the new offences under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, it referred to research showing that online reviews are used by 90% of consumers and contribute to the £217 billion spent in online retail markets in 2023. Those figures emphasise how important online reviews are to nearly every business and how vulnerable they are to malicious campaigns. There is, however, a gaping hole in the legislation left by the last government and we will be lobbying Ministers in the current government to fill it.