Government unveils framework to curb fake reviews on e-commerce site

Government unveils framework to curb fake reviews on e-commerce site

Subject : Polity

Context:

• The Central government recently unveiled the new standard Indian Standard (IS) 19000:2022 on Online Consumer Reviews and ratings, which has been prepared by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
• What is the issue:
• To combat the threat of fraudulent and deceptive product and service reviews, all e-commerce players, travel and ticketing portals and online food delivery platforms will soon be required to voluntarily reveal all paid or sponsored reviews. 
• With the notification of the standard, India will be the first country in the world to have such a norm for Online Consumer Reviews.
• More about the framework:
• As per the new standard, the BIS has defined reviews as solicited and unsolicited.
• The person responsible for handling the review in any organisation will be called the review administrator.
• The new standard gives an option for the reviewers to withdraw their reviews
• The new standard will be applicable even for independent third-party entities that post such reviews on any online platform.
• The focus of the new standard is adequate disclosure, as the online platforms have to specify the period when the reviews were collected so that consumers are not misled.
• Representatives from all major players, including Google and Meta, were part of the committee that developed the final standard, thus high compliance is to be expected, as fake reviews also harm the industry.
• Failure to comply with the BIS standard is unfair trade practice, and such entities may face legal action under the Consumer Protection Act.
• The BIS will come up with a conformity assessment scheme to certify the websites hosting such reviews. The websites will display such certification for consumers information.
• What is The Bureau of Indian Standards  (BIS):
• It is the National Standards Body of India under Department of Consumer affairs, Ministry of Consumer Affairs,Food & Public Distribution, Government of India.
• Initially established as a society, the BIS was made a statutory body under the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016, with its headquarters in New Delhi.
• It has 25 members drawn from Central or State Governments, industry, scientific and research institutions and consumer organisations.
• It also works as a  Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO-TBT) enquiry point for India.
• The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO-TBT) Agreement, is an international treaty which is binding on all WTO members administered by the World Trade Organisation