Govt mulls way of protecting online consumers from ‘reward’-based reviews

In a bid to make it easier for consumers to know whether the review they are reading of a product or service is entirely independent or based on the reviewers getting ‘rewards’, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has proposed a solution.

In addition, in a draft revising the Standards on Online Consumer Reviews: Principles and Requirements for Their Collection, Moderation and Publication, the BIS has suggested that the administrators of online sites should not account ratings collected with rewards when calculating the overall rating of a product or service.

Instead, these reviews should have a separate rating and have a different mark to make it clear to consumers that they are different from other reviews.