OCU celebrates the entry into force of this rule, which imposes penalties of up to one million euros
MADRID, 27 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The modification of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and the Law of Unfair Competition, which regulates the necessary information that entrepreneurs must include in the offer of goods and services, in particular, in what refers to the reviews made by consumers and users, will come into force this Saturday.
Specifically and from now on, companies must indicate whether the reviews that accompany their goods and services are from people who have actually used or acquired them, in addition to accompanying clear and detailed information on the way in which said reviews are processed.
In this way, non-compliance with these requirements will be considered an unfair practice for being misleading and the penalties could reach one million euros in the case of those that are classified as very serious or up to eight times the benefit that has been obtained illegally. when the offense is committed in Spain, and up to 4% of the billing volume when offenses are committed in several countries of the European Union.
In the sanctioning system, different aspects of classification of offenses by seriousness, by the responsible subjects, as well as the prescription and expiration dates are contemplated.
In the same way, the rule establishes that failure to comply with these requirements will be considered an unfair practice as it is deceptive.
The Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) has celebrated its entry into force, since it has recalled that false reviews, purchased or interested (‘fake reviews’) are not uncommon to find when purchasing a product online.
The organization verified in 2019 the existence of companies that offered a commission or their products for free in exchange for a positive evaluation.
Thus, after analyzing more than 6 million opinions on 47,000 products and services using ‘big data’ techniques, OCU detected that a high percentage of them could be ‘fake reviews’: up to 8.4% of the products on Amazon, up to 6.2% of the hotels on TripAdvisor and up to 2.1% of those on Booking.
OCU recalls that it transferred the results of this report to both the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) as well as to the General Directorate of Consumer Affairs, from which it did not receive any response.
