In October 2024, a US federal rule on consumer reviews and testimonials came into force. Its full name is long and its official home is Part 465 of Title 16 of the Code of Federal Regulations, but most people just call it the FTC fake review rule.
If you run a business that collects reviews in the US, it applies to you. And if you've ever used a review "strategy" someone sold you, it's worth ten minutes to check it against the list below.
This isn't legal advice. It's a plain reading of what the rule covers, so you know what questions to ask if anything sounds close to home.
Why it matters more than earlier guidance
The FTC has warned about fake reviews for years. What changed is that it can now seek civil penalties for knowing violations. When the rule took effect, that was up to $51,744 per violation, and the figure gets adjusted for inflation each year. "Per violation" is the important part. A batch of fake reviews isn't one violation.
What the rule bans
1. Fake reviews and testimonials
Writing, buying or selling reviews that misrepresent who wrote them or what happened. That includes reviews by people who don't exist, reviews by people who never used the product, and reviews that claim an experience that didn't happen.
AI-generated reviews are named directly. If a tool writes reviews that pretend to be from customers, that's a fake review.
It also covers businesses that buy fake reviews or pass them off as real, when they knew or should have known they were fake.
2. Paying for reviews that say a particular thing
You can't offer something in return for a review that's conditioned, openly or by implication, on it being positive or negative. "Leave us five stars and get 10% off" is the textbook example.
What about incentives for any honest review? The FTC rule targets incentives tied to sentiment. But platforms like Google ban incentives entirely, so in practice: don't. We cover the honest ways to ask in how to get more Google reviews without breaking the rules.
3. Insider reviews without disclosure
Reviews from your owners, managers, staff or their close relatives need to say so clearly. The rule also covers asking staff or relatives to collect reviews from people close to them in certain ways. The simple fix: if you're connected to the business, say so, or don't review it.
4. Company-controlled "independent" review sites
You can't run a website that looks like an independent review site but is really yours, reviewing your own products. If it's yours, it has to be clear that it's yours.
5. Review suppression
This one catches more businesses than people realise. You can't use unfounded legal threats, intimidation or false public accusations to stop someone posting a review or to get one taken down.
It also covers saying or implying that the reviews you show represent most or all of the reviews you got, when you've hidden negative ones based on their rating or sentiment. That's close cousin to review gating, which we cover in review gating is banned: here's what to do instead.
6. Fake social proof
Buying or selling fake followers, views or similar indicators of influence, when the buyer knows or should know they're fake and uses them for a commercial purpose.
Who it applies to
Businesses that use reviews and testimonials to market themselves to US consumers, and the people who sell fake reviews to them. Size doesn't matter. A two-person café and a national chain are both covered.
A self-check for your current habits
Go through these honestly. A "yes" to any of the first five deserves a closer look.
- Do we offer anything in return for a review?
- Do we send review requests only to customers we think are happy?
- Has anyone on the team, or anyone they're related to, reviewed us without saying so?
- Have we ever bought reviews, followers or a "reputation package" that promised a set number of positive reviews?
- Have we threatened legal action or used pressure to get a review removed?
- Do we reply to negative reviews in public as well as positive ones?
- Do we keep a record of review requests we send, so we could show we ask everyone the same way?
What's still completely fine
The rule isn't against asking for reviews. You can:
- Ask every customer for an honest review, in the same way.
- Reply to any review, including critical ones, as long as you don't threaten or misrepresent.
- Report reviews you believe are fake or break a platform's policies. Our guide on spotting and removing fake reviews shows how to do that with evidence.
- Show off genuine reviews on your website.
- Offer to fix a problem for an unhappy customer, as long as the offer doesn't depend on what they do with their review.
Where verification helps
One quiet effect of the rule is that the burden of being trusted has gone up. If you show reviews on your site, people increasingly want to know they're real and complete. That's part of why we built Trust Shield into Reputfy: reviews are fingerprinted when collected, and the fingerprints are anchored publicly so anyone can check a review hasn't been edited after the fact. It doesn't prove a review is fair. It does prove it hasn't been quietly changed. We go into that difference in what blockchain review verification actually proves.
The short version
Ask everyone. Pay no one for opinions. Disclose connections. Don't bury the bad ones. Reply like a person. If you do those five things, this rule is something you'll rarely think about.
