BIS Releases Guidelines for Customer Reviews Posted Online

As part of the government’s attempts to combat fake reviews, the Bureau of Indian Standards has released a new guideline for companies including e-commerce players, travel portals, and food delivery platforms that publish user evaluations online.

This guideline is relevant to any company that posts customer evaluations online, including product and service providers who gather feedback from their own clients, partners they have hired, and unaffiliated third parties.

The standard i.e. Indian Standard, IS 19000:2022, ‘Online Consumer Reviews – Principles and Requirements’ would help build confidence among consumers to purchase goods online and help them take better purchase decisions.

“This standard outlines the guidelines and best practises that review administrators should follow when gathering, editing, and publishing online customer reviews. In accordance with the norm, the review author and review administrator are both given defined duties, “The notification read.

The BIS guideline outlines the procedure that shows consumer review websites’ dedication to showing that they cherish their clients and offer reliable reviews.

E-commerce transactions have steadily increased across the nation during the past several years with consumers relying heavily on reviews posted on e-commerce platforms and it plays a key influence in buying decisions. The BIS standards were created following extensive stakeholder engagements and the government will consider making the it mandatory if the threat of bogus reviews on internet platforms persists.

Companies would be required to voluntarily reveal any compensated customer testimonials for goods and services they sell on their platforms. Reviews that have been “bought and/or authored by personnel employed for that purpose by the provider or third party concerned,” however, are prohibited from publication by the government.