In response to the FTC's recent allegations regarding misleading reviews on Sitejabber, we want to firstly express our strong support of the FTC’s new rules for reviews and testimonials and reaffirm our longstanding commitment to online transparency. However, we also feel it is important to clarify the context and timeline surrounding the FTC’s allegations, as well as the improvements Sitejabber has previously made to benefit businesses and consumers and which currently align with the latest FTC’s rules and guidelines.
Point-of-Sale Reviews
The core of the FTC’s allegations center around what are known as “point-of-sale” reviews, which are reviews that are collected immediately after a purchase. We believe that point-of-sale reviews are legitimate reviews — reviews written by real customers about their actual purchasing experiences. These reviews capture authentic feedback and can contain valuable insights about a business’s website, a business’s product selection, the buyer’s interaction with customer support, and the checkout process. We believe these reviews are useful to both consumers and businesses.
Point-of-sale reviews have always been and continue to be prevalent in the reviews space. In fact, many review platforms continue to collect point-of-sale reviews on behalf of businesses today, and some will explicitly label them as such while many do not.
On Sitejabber, we previously distinguished point-of-sale reviews from post-fulfillment reviews by:
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Displaying a breakdown of the different types of reviews and how they were collected whenever a user hovered over the total number of reviews. In this breakdown, point-of-sale reviews collected by the business were labeled as “Solicited - Verified Website Experience”
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Labeling every point-of-sale review as a “Verified site experience” and explaining how the review was collected whenever a user hovered over the label. The explanatory text stated, “This review was written by a verified customer at point of purchase, before the product or service was delivered”
What Changed in 2023
On June 30, 2023, the FTC announced proposed new rules and updated guides for consumer reviews and testimonials and how they can be used. These rules suggested that, due to how consumers currently view and perceive reviews, all reviews should be indicative of a consumer’s actual experience with a business’s product or service. Although not explicitly mentioned, point-of-sale reviews are implied to be misleading since they are typically written before a product or service has been fulfilled.
Early 2024 Product Changes
Once we became aware of this in late 2023, we began the process of removing all point-of-sale business reviews from the overall rating and review count, and separated them into a more clearly-labeled “Instant Feedback” tab:
We also discontinued the ability for businesses to collect and display point-of-sale product feedback, which primarily provided insights into purchase decisions.
These significant updates were implemented at the beginning of 2024, and we communicated these changes and the rationale behind them in an important blog post. We also reached out to all businesses on our platform to inform them about the updated regulatory environment and best practices.
FTC Settlement
It is important to note that the FTC’s allegations relate to our display of point-of-sale reviews in the past and prior to our early 2024 updates. Since making our product changes at the beginning of this year, we have been operating in compliance with the latest FTC guidelines. While we disagree with the implied intent and impact of the FTC’s allegations, we have always supported increased transparency and regulation around reviews. It was a difficult decision, but we ultimately chose to settle, as most of the FTC’s concerns had already been addressed by our earlier changes, and the agreement did not involve any further significant alterations to our practices or any civil penalties.
Looking Forward
Throughout the settlement process, we have worked with the FTC to ensure that our review collection and display practices align with the latest regulatory standards and will continue to do so in support of our mission of increasing online transparency for consumers and businesses alike. It is our hope that other review platforms will follow suit and that the evolving regulations around reviews continue to serve the best interests of consumers.
