Online shoppers rely on star ratings, but the legal ground beneath them is shifting. In Spain, publishing or commissioning fake reviews has been an unfair commercial practice since May 28, 2022. From late 2025, sites that display reviews must ensure they concern products or services bought or used in the previous 30 calendar days. Regulators are struggling to verify authenticity: a January 2022 European sweep could not confirm that 144 of 223 websites did enough to guarantee genuine reviews.
- EU baseline: Unverified review claims, commissioned fakes, and manipulated endorsements are blacklisted.
- Spanish fines: Penalties can reach €1 million, or more in serious cases.
- US rule: The FTC targets fake, purchased, and AI-generated reviews, plus review suppression.
What the law prohibits
The core rules come from Brussels. Directive (EU) 2019/2161, the consumer-rights “Omnibus” update, blacklists two practices. Businesses cannot claim reviews come from users or buyers without reasonable, proportionate verification. They also cannot add or commission fake reviews or endorsements, or distort reviews and social approvals to promote products. Recitals explicitly cover fake “likes” and publishing only positive reviews while deleting negative ones.
Spain transposed this through Royal Decree-Law 24/2021, adding sections 7 and 8 to Article 27 of the Unfair Competition Law, effective May 28, 2022. The European Consumer Centre summarized the change as a push against fake or manufacturer-paid reviews.
The newest rule is Article 20.4 of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers, reformed by Law 10/2025 and effective December 28, 2025. Sites displaying reviews must say whether they guarantee reviewers bought or used the product, explain how reviews are processed, and ensure they refer to purchases or uses in the previous 30 calendar days. A reviewed company can respond and seek removal of a fake or misleading review if it reliably proves no real customer wrote it. The burden of proof is on the business.
Fines and FTC action
In Spain, consumer authorities impose administrative fines. Unfair commercial practices fall under Article 47, while Article 49 sets ranges: €150–€10,000 for minor violations, €10,001–€100,000 for serious ones, and €100,001–€1 million for very serious cases. The worst cases can rise to six or eight times illicit profit. In coordinated EU actions under Regulation (EU) 2017/2394, the maximum for very serious infringements is 4% of annual turnover, or €2 million if unknown.
In the United States, the FTC approved a fake-review rule by a 5-0 vote on August 14, 2024. It bans fake reviews and testimonials, including AI-generated ones; buying positive or negative reviews; undisclosed executive or employee reviews; company-controlled “independent review” sites; suppression of negative reviews; and fake social-media popularity indicators. Knowing violators can face civil penalties.
TechNews DevTop’s analysis: Europe and the United States reached a similar destination by different routes. The FTC’s explicit AI reference signals where the problem is heading.
Spotting a fake review
The FTC’s guide warns that you cannot assume you can spot a fake review by sight. Fluent AI text no longer gives the game away; patterns do.
- Bursts: Many reviews in a short period; check recency.
- Reviewer history: Accounts created for one review of one product.
- High but imperfect scores: Fake positives may avoid the maximum rating to seem credible.
- Fake negatives: Posted to damage a competitor.
- Incentives: Labels for reviewers who received something, such as a free product.
- Multiple sources: Compare with known sites offering expert, impartial tests.
EU law adds a check few people perform: find out how the store verifies reviews. That disclosure is mandatory, yet the European Commission’s January 2022 sweep found 104 of 223 websites did not explain how they collected and processed reviews, and only 84 did so on the review page. Silence is itself a data point.
If a review pushes an external link or asks you to pay outside the platform, it resembles a phishing signal rather than an opinion. Too-perfect “satisfied customer” videos deserve the same suspicion; learn how to detect AI-generated videos, voices, and images.
Reporting and the enforcement gap
Report fake reviews on the platform. The Digital Services Act requires hosting services to offer easy mechanisms for notifying illegal content, defined as material breaching EU or member-state law. A review violating the Unfair Competition Law would appear to fit, though each case depends on the platform and authorities.
The laws are reasonably strong; enforcement at scale is the weak point. A 30-day window, mandatory verification, and fines of up to €1 million — or more depending on profit — mean little if buyers trust the star average without checking who signed the review. The average score is the easiest number on the page to manipulate. Long, detailed three-star reviews often provide the most useful information, and they are the least attractive to fake.