Herb Hedgerow Ltd–Written evidence (OPL0003)

 

Online platforms and the EU Digital Single Market

 

GOOGLE SHOULD PENALISE REVIEW WEBSITES THAT DO NOT VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY OF THEIR REVIEWS

 

  1. It is our opinion that online search engines such as Google and Bing should come under pressure to de-list or ‘unrank’ review websites that do not verify the legitimacy of the reviews placed upon them.

 

  1. The UK’s Competition and Market Authority (CMA) is now investigating the large number of fake positive and fake negative reviews left on the Internet and large-scale public attention was brought to this issue in the media in June 2015.

 

  1. It is estimated that as many as 30% of reviews, both positive and negative, are fake (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33205905). Websites such as Fiverr and Craigslist are filled with contractors offering to write reviews.

 

  1. Whilst we strongly support the need for genuine customer review sites, our organisation received a significant number of fake defamatory reviews, which are thought to have been written by a jealous competitor.

 

  1. Our reviewer used notorious blackmail sites such as RipoffReport.com and PissedConsumer.com to place the same defamatory fake review multiple times. This was done with the overall intention of getting this fake review high in the search rankings for our business name. Both of these websites are well-known amongst the online defamatory legal and reputation management community.

 

  1. Sites such as RipoffReport and PissedConsumer are based in the USA and call themselves ‘the keeper of the public records’. Anyone can publish a review on these sites and anyone can create an anonymous or fake profile to do so.

 

  1. The owners of these websites do not check the legitimacy or authenticity of the reviews and do not ask the reviewers to provide any proof of purchase. The organisation or individual under review can also not challenge the review websites to demand proof of purchase, if it is suspected that the review is fake.

 

  1. The reviews placed upon these websites will never be removed – even if the original author requests that the websites take it down.

 

  1. This is in stark contrast to legitimate reviews sites such as Trustpilot, where an organisation can ask Trustpilot to ask the reviewer for proof of purchase if the organisation suspects a review is fake.

 

  1. Both RipoffReport and PissedConsumer maintain an ‘arbitration’ process, where the company or individual subject to the review can pay $2,000 to enter into an arbitration process with the reviewer. If the website arbitrators conclude the process in your favour, they will place a paragraph at the top of the negative review stating that the organisation/individual made amends. They will still never remove the review, regardless of whether it is true or fake. It is our opinion (which is shared widely on the Internet) that this is a form of online blackmail and is wide open to abuse.

 

  1. Whilst here in the UK an organisation can ask for a website to hand over a reviewer’s identify under the Defamation Act of 2013, anonymous speech is protected in the USA. Numerous legal cases have been brought against RipoffReport in particular but no one has made any significant wins against the website’s owners.

 

  1. Search engines such as Google also do not verify the authenticity of reviews online.

 

  1. From a technical perspective, search engines such as Google ‘reward’ websites such as RipoffReport, as they contain millions of backlinks to other websites. Their algorithm favours websites with lots of links.

 

  1. This affinity with these blackmail review sites means that they rank extremely highly and can rise quickly to the top of the search engines, damaging your organisation’s or personal reputation.

 

  1. Whilst the new ‘right to be forgotten’ legislation applies to individuals and can help them remove defamatory statements from the search engines, this service is not applicable as such to commercial organisations.

 

  1. It is our opinion that search engines such as Google exert significant influence on how organisations are portrayed in the search results. With consumers now reaching immediately for Google when they look for information on products and services, fake reviews can significantly damage an organisation’s reputation.

 

  1. It is our opinion that Google and other search engines should penalise review websites that do not offer any kind of authenticity check for organisations or individuals that find themselves subjected to a fake review.

 

  1. We are now going to pay an Internet reputation management organisation a monthly retainer of £1,000 for the next year (and possibly beyond) in order to try and suppress fake reviews placed by a disgruntled competitor in the search engines. This is a significant financial expenditure for our small organisation but we recognise that it is necessary in order to maintain our market position.

 

  1. We hired an online defamation lawyer to help us try to approach several of the websites that published fake reviews about our organisation. His fees would be very affordable for a large multinational, but were not for our small organisation.

 

  1. We kindly ask that you challenge search engines such as Google with regards their affinity with various blackmail review sites and ask them to only rank those review sites which have a mechanism of verifying the authenticity of their reviews.

 

LACK OF GLOBAL INTERNET GOVERNANCE

 

  1. Following on from points 1-16, it is becoming increasingly challenging for an organisation to function in the Digital Single Market when no clear global legislation or Internet Governance exists to regulate business and consumer interactions.

 

  1. There are no central global regulatory bodies which an organisation can approach in the case of:

 

    1. Plagiarism
    2. Copyright or trademark infringement
    3. Intellectual Property theft
    4. Defamation

 

  1. For example, if an organisation in the UK finds that its websites, content, digital products, etc. are copied and stolen by an individual/organisation in a country that isn’t the UK, that organisation would typically apply to DMCA.com in the USA to file a ‘take-down request’. DMCA stands for ‘Digital Millenium Copyright Act’ which is a US Copyright Law.

 

  1. It is our opinion that a UK business should be able to find regulatory support and advice within the UK for an online legal issue such as those mentioned in paragraph 22.

 

  1. It is our opinion that domestic regulatory bodies around the world – including the UK - no longer offer the support required by organisations that trade cross-border on the Internet.

 

  1. Our small organisation has hundreds of customers in over 80 countries and we know that in the case of legal cross-border issues, we would not be able to afford the legal fees or understand the legal complexity of dealing with any such matters. We also know that the UK legal system would not be able to support us at all.

 

PAYPAL FIXES FOREIGN CURRENCY EXCHANGE RATES

 

  1. PayPal currently sets its own foreign currency exchange rates, which are significantly higher than the global exchange rates.

 

  1. When our customers purchase one of our digital products, they have the choice of purchasing by credit or debit card, or by PayPal. As we sell products all around the world, many of our customers make use of our online ‘currency converter’ software which allows them to checkout in British Pounds Sterling, whilst having their own converted currency displayed during the final checkout.

 

  1. It always costs more to purchase our products in a foreign currency when using PayPal rather than when using a credit/debit card. Our customers frequently complain to us, as they feel that this is a matter we should be able to control.

 

  1. We feel that this exchange rate fixing is damaging to our organisation’s reputation.

 

  1. It is our opinion that PayPal exerts undue dominance when setting currency exchange rates. It is our opinion that PayPal abuses its position as a market leader for online payments by forcing consumers to pay over the odds for their products when they make a purchase in a foreign currency.

 

2 October 2015