A seismic shift in the reviews landscape - CMA to use AI to examine online reviews

This post is directed at those businesses that have so far escaped sanction by the Competition and Markets Authority (the government body responsible for enforcing the law regarding online reviews in the UK). If you are a HelpHound client, you do not need to read any further, but you may like to do so to reassure yourself that your business is in full compliance with current legislation.

First, we repeat the rationale behind compliance with the CMA's regulations...

We understand why businesses cherry-pick (not so much those that 'gate*'); it's exactly why we introduced moderation: to give businesses the confidence to allow** all their customers to write a review. 

Of course, the business above could simply replace the invitation to write a review to its own website with one to write a review directly to Google, but that would mean bypassing moderation and increasing the risk of inaccurate and potentially misleading reviews finding their way to Google.

The CMA is on the case of businesses that cherry-pick happy customers to write reviews (that was confirmed to us in no uncertain terms in a conversation with a senior CMA staffer). Until now, that meant a pretty exhaustive and in-depth investigation, and businesses, particularly SMEs, quite understandably reckoned that their chances of appearing in the CMA's crosshairs were remote.

Not any more. As of this month, the CMA will be employing its own bespoke AI to track down offending businesses. 

Now, we don't know exactly how the CMA's AI will work, but if we put ourselves in the CMA enforcement team's position for a minute, we know exactly what we would be programming its AI to look for...

• Few reviews relative to the number of customers the business has, or onboards over a given timescale 
• An erratic pattern of reviews; many one month and then few - or none - the next
• Sudden spikes in positive reviews - especially following a negative review
• Use of more than one review platform. Not always an indicator, but any sign that the business is inviting reviews to one platform (Trustpilot, say) and then only inviting those that post a 5* review there to copy it to another, more visible, site (Google is the obvious choice). Called 'gating*' by the regulators and Google
• Businesses that show only 5* reviews on their own websites
• Businesses that show unattributed reviews on their websites
• Businesses that are proactive in inviting customers to post reviews, but cannot prove that all their customers have had the opportunity to post a review**
• Businesses that use mechanisms that control the timing of the review (commonly immediately post-purchase)
• Businesses that reward customers for 5* reviews

None of the above, taken individually, are concrete proof of any contravention of the CMA rules. But they will be enough for the regulators to move on to the next step: formal investigation. This may/will involve the sequestration of computer hardware and email records. And we seriously doubt any business wants to experience that at first hand.

And the list doesn't end there. The great thing about AI is that, once programmed, it will find just about every business that fits the regulators' target criteria. All the CMA will need to do is issue sanction notices to those businesses. Exactly as HMRC did on 10 July this year, for businesses not in compliance with the Anti-Money-Laundering legislation. The onus will always be on the business to prove its innocence. And ignorance of the CMA regulations will be no defence.

And finally...

The most obvious question from businesses that have cherry-picked historically is, 'If we become compliant today, will the CMA sanction us?' We cannot give you a definitive answer to that question, although any sensible person would imagine that the CMA's priorities would lie in the direction of currently non-compliant businesses. What we can say for sure is that being able to say 'We ensured we became 100% compliant as soon as we were made aware of the relevant CMA regulations' is a far better response than 'We are currently ensuring that all our review management will be in compliance with the CMA regulations in future'.

Further reading:

• AI and reviews - an important update