COMPLIANCE · Pro PLAYBOOK
THE LANDMARK CHANGE: in 2024 the FTC finalized its rule banning fake and manipulated reviews and testimonials — covering reviews by people who don't exist, by people who never used the product, purchased reviews, and insider reviews without disclosure. Civil penalties under the rule can run into the tens of thousands of dollars per fake review. For live sellers this matters twice over: the reviews you display on camera, and the reviews your 'growth agency' buys on your behalf that you will be answering for. Ignorance of how your reviews were obtained is not a defense structure that survives an investigation.
WHAT THE RULE COVERS, PLAINLY: five behaviors are now clearly actionable — writing or selling fake reviews; buying or procuring reviews from people with no genuine experience; insider reviews (employees, family, affiliated sellers reviewing their own products without disclosure); review suppression (paying or threatening to remove negative reviews while keeping positives); and fake review indicators like review-farming services whose output you knew or should have known was fake. The rule also reaches the sellers who commission violations, not just the writers — which is where live-commerce operators get caught.
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