Consumer reviews: new prohibitions under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (“DMCC Act”) introduces a number of significant changes to consumer law, many of which are due to come into effect from April 2025. These changes include new prohibited practices and requirements relating to consumer reviews (“Consumer Review Laws”).

The Consumer Review Laws apply to people who write consumer reviews, businesses which publish or commission consumer reviews about themselves and those who offer services in connection with certain prohibited practices. This article is aimed at businesses which publish, or commission, consumer reviews about themselves.

What is prohibited?

The Consumer Review Laws are broad in scope but, in summary, prohibit:

• submitting, or commissioning a person to write, a consumer review that is fake or that conceals the fact it has been incentivised
• publishing consumer reviews, or consumer review information, in a misleading way
• publishing consumer reviews, or consumer review information, without taking reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent the publication, or removal, of fake consumer reviews, reviews that conceal the fact they have been incentivised or false or misleading consumer review information
• offering services in connection with any of the banned practices referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 above.

What is a fake consumer review?

A fake consumer review is any positive or negative review of a product, trader or any other matter relevant to a transactional decision, that falsely purports to be based on a person's genuine experience. This covers various formats, including written (whether electronic or hard copy), verbal and graphical.

What if it’s not obvious that a consumer review is fake?

Simply because a consumer review is fake, does not necessarily mean that the business publishing it will be in breach of the Consumer Review Laws, provided that it has taken reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent the publication, or removal, of fake consumer reviews, reviews that conceal the fact they have been incentivised and misleading consumer reviews.

What about genuine consumer reviews?

Even if a consumer review is not fake, its publication is still prohibited if the review has been incentivised and then published in circumstances where it would not be immediately apparent to anyone engaging with it that they are viewing incentivised content. Incentivisation can include, for example, money, commissions, free or discounted products and invitations to events.

Enforcement powers

Another significant change brought about by the DMCC Act, is the power given to The Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) to issue fines of up to 10% of global annual turnover (or £300,000, whichever is the greater) directly to businesses, for non compliance, including non compliance with the Consumer Review Laws, and without the need to go through the courts.

How to prepare for the changes

Businesses should start thinking now about how they publish, and commission third parties to write consumer reviews to ensure that they are ready for April 2025.

The CMA has published draft guidance which contains a lot of useful information for businesses affected by the Consumer Review Laws (“Draft Guidance”).

Weightmans LLP can also provide advice and assistance if required.

Set out below, are some non-exhaustive examples of what to avoid, and some non-exhaustive examples of the positive steps businesses are expected to take to ensure compliance.

Examples of what to avoid

Do not commission a person to write a fake review. For example, offering an existing customer a free or discounted product in exchange for a five-star review (which is not reflective of their genuine experience) or contacting a customer who has left a negative review and offering them a refund or a gift card if they amend their review to remove any negative commentary.

Do not publish reviews in a way that is misleading. For example, failing to publish or removing negative consumer reviews while only publishing positive ones (or vice versa) or omitting information that is relevant to the circumstances in which a consumer review has been written (including that a person has been commissioned to write the review).

Do not commission a person to write a review, unless you have explained to them that:

• the review must reflect their genuine experience
• they must clearly disclose that their review has been incentivised.

Additionally, you must take appropriate steps to clearly distinguished incentivised reviews from other reviews, to prevent it misleading consumers.

What positive steps do you need to take?

Businesses are also required to take positive reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent the publication, or to remove, fake consumer reviews, reviews that conceal the fact they have been incentivised and false or misleading consumer review information.

The requirements of this obligation will vary from business to business and include having regard to the relevant business model and the potential impact of a trader's activity. Those traders which have higher risk profile will have to implement more extensive measures.

The Draft Guidance include a number of considerations to be taken into account by businesses publishing consumer reviews, including for example: 

• prevention and removal policy: businesses should have a published policy, readily available to users and which should for example clearly prohibit fake reviews, set out the position on incentivised reviews and clarify the distinction between complaints and reviews
• risk assessments: businesses should conduct regular assessments to assess the risk of consumers encountering reviews or information on the publisher’s media which is prohibited and to identify appropriate measures to address those risks
• detection measures: the draft guidance sets out various measures which may be adopted to detect infringing reviews, including for example, regularly monitoring, considering and keeping sufficient records of the review submission history and the profile of traders, products and reviewers, to help spot patterns of behaviour
• investigation measures: businesses should have a process in place for investigating suspicious reviews or information and identifying, for example, when an investigation is required, the evidence required, whilst ensuring that there are no unreasonable delays to the publication of genuine reviews
• response measures: businesses should take appropriate measures to address any banned content, including for example, removing banned reviews and correcting published review counts, overall ratings, rankings and AI-generated review summaries
• possible sanctions: businesses should take appropriate measures to address the sources of any unlawful activity, including for example, removing published reviews for traders who have submitted or benefited from banned reviews and prohibiting infringing traders from leaving reviews.