What are Fake Online Reviews?

The internet has heralded an economic revolution.

The internet economy of the G20 countries alone is worth more than $4.2 trillion representing 5.3% of their total GDP. However, as Tim Berners Lee, the father of the internet has put it: "While the web has created opportunity, given marginalized groups a voice, and made our daily lives easier, it has also created opportunity for scammers, given a voice to those who spread hatred, and made all kinds of crime easier to commit.’’ In a series of reports, we reveal the monetary cost caused by bad actors on the internet. CHEQ has commissioned economist, Professor Roberto Cavazos at the University of Baltimore, to undertake the first ever in-depth economic analysis of the full scale of internet harm. For the first time, using economic analysis, alongside statistical and data analysis, we measure the global economic price paid by businesses and society due to problems including ad fraud, and fake online reviews.

Fake online reviews are defined as any positive, neutral, or negative review that is not an actual consumer's honest and impartial opinion and does not reflect a genuine experience of a product, service, or business. The sites on which reviews appear are multiple: ranging from online brands making online feedback part of their core offering (such as Amazon), sites that embed third-party review platforms such as Expedia, and platforms whose core purpose is to provide reviews and feedback (such as TripAdvisor).

The economic cost of fake online reviews is a $152 billion problem.

Please click here to read more about the impact of fake online reviews.