The Consumer Affairs Agency plans to crack down on the rampant practice of people listing items for sale on online shopping sites and rewarding users who write made-up reviews raving about the items.
In some cases, companies have used social media to find people willing to write posts that will embellish the overall assessment of the firm's products. Although these websites prohibit such conduct, which could also infringe on the misleading representation law and other laws, the agency plans to beef up measures to combat improper reviews.
This spring, a 19-year-old student from Kanagawa Prefecture saw several social media posts featuring an image of a product and an enticing message: "If you are interested, please contact us." The student contacted each of these message posters and was instructed to buy items identical to those pictured for sale online. He bought about 50 items and then wrote glowing reviews about them on the websites. Among the items the student bought was a smartwatch. He put the smartwatch on his wrist without even turning it on, but let his creative juices flow as he wrote the review. "It has good water resistance," he wrote – despite not knowing if this was accurate.
Several days after posting his review, the fee he paid to purchase the smartwatch was fully refunded through an online payment. The student resells most of the items he effectively ends up getting for free on online trading websites, and has reportedly pocketed a profit of about 60,000 yen.
"Even if the review is fake, the purchaser probably won't complain if they can use the item with no problems," the student said. "I just wrote some stuff to earn a little pocket money, and I don't feel guilty about doing it."
--Critical reviews also posted
Product buyer reviews usually are given as comments or a number of stars. According to the agency, if similar products are sold on an online shopping website, items with better review scores appear higher up in search results. This can often be a decisive factor in online purchases. A survey by the agency found that about 90% of online shopping website users aged from their 20s to their 60s check reviews when making a purchase.
Another advertising tactic is called "stealth marketing," in which messages promoting products and other items appear to be normal posts on crowd-sourced review websites and social media sites. Operators sometimes do this systematically, and the Tabelog restaurant review and ranking site was previously found to have been used for such wrongdoing. There also have been confirmed cases of negative reviews posted to discourage people from using a rival's product.
There are many messages on social media inviting people to post less-than-truthful reviews along with images of a product. A 46-year-old man who had been a go-between for sellers and posters said, "In many cases, Chinese companies tap middlemen to find people through social media to post reviews of products they want to sell in Japan." The man claimed he was paid a commission of several hundred yen for every fake review he arranged.
--Hard to detect
Making a product appear far more appealing than it really is could infringe on the misleading representation law. Claiming health foods or makeup products provide scientifically unproven effects or benefits also risks breaching the pharmaceutical and medical device law or the health promotion law.
However, the misleading representation law targets only the seller, so a person who wrote a false review after being requested to do so cannot be held criminally liable. Posts featuring vague expressions such as "easy to use" or "good" also might not necessarily be classified as "misleading representation."
Operators of these websites delete messages or suspend the accounts of users found to have made posts suspected to be improper, such as writing identical reviews for multiple products. However, sophisticated methods are being used to avoid detection, including posing as regular users of the website. Uncovering this wrongdoing is difficult, and no administrative penalties for such conduct have been issued.
Alarmed by this situation, the agency plans to tighten measures against abuse of the review system. In December, the agency set up a panel of experts tasked with coming up with ways to rectify improper reviews and other wrongdoing. The panel is considering issues such as how to establish a legal framework that would clarify the legal responsibility of people who post reviews, and a mechanism for eliminating crooked operators.
Lawyer Yoichiro Itakura, an expert on fake review issues, said tighter laws were needed.
"The existing laws have their limitations. We need legislation that can regulate middlemen and posters of improper reviews so they don't go unchecked," Itakura said. "Consumers also should be aware that some reviews are fake. They should make a purchase only after comparing several sites and checking for information about defective products."
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
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