You may not have realized this, but it is illegal to create fake reviews and testimonials about your products, services, or business on Google Places, Google Hotpot, your blog, your website, and even on Amazon.com. As a business owner you should know that there are some serious penalties that can be assessed if you are doing this or even unknowingly in this.
How so? In November 2009 the FTC, that is the Federal Trade Commission, released advertising guidelines that impact all advertising efforts even including the Web and blogging. In a nutshell the rules state that you can not write as if you have used a product or service when you have not. If you are paid to write a piece about a product you must have used it and you must state in your piece that you are paid to write the piece. You can read all the gory details and gobbledy gook the feds write to spell out a concept from the FTC website.
The bottom line is this, in the FTC’s own words for bloggers and online publishers:
- Endorsements must be truthful and not misleading.
- If the advertiser doesn’t have proof that the endorser’s experience represents what consumers will achieve by using the product, the ad must clearly and conspicuously disclose the generally expected results in the depicted circumstances, and
- If there’s a connection between the endorser and the marketer of the product that would affect how people evaluate the endorsement, it should be disclosed.
There are penalties spelled out for violations and the FTC makes it easy to report a violation with their online complaint site.
The reason for my blog post today is however to mention that creating fake reviews on Google Hotpot and other online review services would also fall into the category as false advertising and could get you and your business in a pickle with the FTC.
I mention this as there are several Google Places firms, based overseas, that are promoting such illegal reviews as part of their business packages. You as a business owner need to know that these review placement and review writing services are illegal and could get YOU in trouble.