The government has finalised a draft framework of standards for dealing with fake reviews and unverified star ratings on ecommerce websites, as well as travel and hotel booking platforms, and is currently in consultation with ecommerce platforms to reach an agreement, according to Rohit Kumar Singh, secretary, department of consumer affairs, in an exclusive interview with ET’s podcast series, The Morning Brief.
He stated that these guidelines would be released soon. “We are working on a generic, robust framework to deal with this. The main issue is traceability and legitimacy of the reviews and ratings – whether the person who wrote the review is actually the user. Hotels and travel reviews are, to use a phrase, the biggest defaulters on this.”
