Business
Five firms including Autotrader and JustEat face ‘fake reviews’ crackdown
The Competition and Markets Authority said it has launched investigations into Autotrader, Feefo, Dignity, Just Eat and Pasta Evangelists as part of its crackdown on fake and misleading reviews.
Since April last year, companies have been banned from certain tactics around online reviews under law, such as fake posts, paid-for reviews that are not clearly marked as incentivised, as well as for hiding negative feedback.
The CMA said it had launched probes against the companies to see whether consumer laws have been broken.
Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said: “Fake reviews strike at the heart of consumer trust – with many of us worrying about misleading content when looking at reviews online.
“With household budgets under pressure, people need to know they’re getting genuine information – not reviews or star ratings that have been manipulated to push them towards the wrong choice.
“We’ve given businesses the time to get things right. Now we’re deploying our new powers to tackle some of the most harmful practices head on.”
The CMA is concerned online reviews play a significant role in people’s decisions, influencing billions of pounds of UK spending every year.
Research from Which? found that 89 per cent of people use reviews when researching a product or service – making it essential that the information they rely on is genuine and transparent. Research published by Truth Engine also suggests that up to half of all online reviews are fake.
Online motor platform Autotrader is being investigated for potentially not counting some one star reviews towards overall star ratings. The CMS said one star reviews, which were moderated by reviews platform Feefo, were not published on Autotrader’s platform, and may not have been counted towards star ratings, therefore denying consumers a fully rounded picture of other customers’ experiences.
Funeral firm Dignity is being investigated for possibly asking staff to write positive reviews about the company’s crematoria services – giving people a potentially inaccurate picture of genuine customers’ feedback.
Takeaway giant Just Eat is being investigated to see if it has been inflating certain restaurants’ and grocers’ star ratings – giving consumers a potentially misleading picture of quality when choosing where to order.
The CMS is also investigating Pasta Evangelists for possibly offering customers discounts on future orders in exchange for leaving 5-star reviews on delivery apps, without this being disclosed – meaning people may not have known how reliable or representative those ratings were.
While the CMA is investigating these five businesses, it has not reached any conclusions about whether consumer law has been broken.
A Just Eat spokesperson said: “We are working closely with the CMA to ensure the reviews and ratings on our platform are clear, transparent and easy to use for all our customers and partners.”
An Autotrader spokesperson said: “We endeavour always to operate as a responsible and compliant business and will co-operate fully with the CMA’s investigation.”
Feefo said: “We remain entirely confident in our compliance frameworks and look forward to contributing to the CMA’s work.”
Pasta Evangelists said it was “co-operating fully with the CMA as it works to understand the facts and the CMA has itself made clear that no conclusions have been reached”.
Dignity said the investigation related to its crematorium and memorial group division and that it was “committed to ensuring full compliance with consumer law and will continue to engage constructively with the CMA”.
Two ads promoting British beef and milk have been banned after television presenter and environmental campaigner Chris Packham complained that they misled consumers about the products’ carbon footprints.
Both ads for the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s (AHDB) Let’s Eat Balanced campaign used the carbon footprint of British beef and milk to promote the products, firstly stating: “British beef not only tastes great, but has a carbon footprint that’s half the global average*.”
The asterisk linked to text that stated: “Full lifecycle emissions of CO2 eq (carbon dioxide equivalent) per kg of beef.”
The ad for milk stated: “British milk not only tastes good, but is also produced to world-class standards, and has a carbon footprint a third lower than the global average.”
Packham complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that the ads, and specifically the carbon footprint claims, were misleading as they did not reflect the full environmental impact of British meat and dairy.
The AHDB said the ads’ mention of carbon emissions would be understood in relation to the environmental impact of beef and milk that occurred between the “cradle-to-retail” stages.
But the ASA said the average consumer “being reasonably well-informed, observant and circumspect” would understand the claims to apply beyond the retail stage and include actions such as cooking and wastage.
The ASA said: “While we acknowledged the potential difficulties in producing post-retail emissions data, the claims in the ads suggested those emissions were included and we therefore expected the evidence provided to also include them.
“We therefore concluded that the evidence presented was insufficient to support the full life-cycle claims in the ads, which was how the average consumer was likely to interpret them.
“We reminded AHDB that environmental claims should be based on the full life cycle unless the ad stated otherwise.”
AHDB’s director of communications and market development, Will Jackson, said: “Let’s Eat Balanced is doing what it was designed to do, providing clear, factual, evidence-led information about British food, nutrition and farming standards.
“Since the investigation began, we have conducted independent consumer research which found that the majority of respondents interpreted these adverts as relating to the production phase only, from farm to retail.
“This research provides important insight into consumer understanding and supports our belief that consumers were not misled by the information we shared in these two specific adverts.”
BENGALURU: India’s Gen Z workforce is embracing what experts describe as “portfolio careers” – balancing multiple professional identities and income streams simultaneously. New research from LinkedIn shows that 75% of Gen Z entrepreneurs in India now manage multiple income streams, significantly higher than the 62% among Gen X entrepreneurs. The findings point to a growing preference among younger professionals for flexibility, autonomy and diversified sources of income. “We’re also seeing the rise of the ‘portfolio era’, with more professionals creating multiple income streams and redefining what a career can look like. This shift is making entrepreneurship more accessible than ever before,” said LinkedIn India country manager Kumaresh Pattabiraman.Rather than depending on a single full-time role, many professionals are simultaneously building businesses, freelancing, consulting, creating online content and monetising specialised skills through digital platforms. The trend comes amid a broader rise in entrepreneurial activity in India. LinkedIn recorded a 104% year-on-year increase in members adding “Founder” to their profiles – the highest growth among all global markets.AI is also emerging as a major enabler of this shift. The report found that 85% of Gen Z entrepreneurs consider AI and digital tools important to their business operations.
Sam Altman said Elon Musk tried many times for total control of OpenAI, which he’s now suing.
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