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Fake reviews ban in the UK: what businesses that publish reviews must do

The DMCC Act bans fake reviews, concealed incentivised reviews and false or misleading review information. This page explains what each term means and what a business that publishes reviews is expected to put in place.

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Answers are written by a language model solely from this base's documents, with numbered sources. They can be wrong and aren't legal, medical or financial advice: check the sources before any important decision.

Three types of banned content

A fake review is a consumer review that purports to be, but is not, based on a person's genuine experience. A concealed incentivised review hides the fact that the reviewer received money or another benefit, such as a free hotel stay. False or misleading consumer review information covers aggregated ratings, summaries, counts and rankings based on such reviews.

The ban covers the whole supply chain: submitting or commissioning banned reviews, publishing them, and offering services that facilitate them, such as running social media groups that recruit people to post fake reviews.

What review publishers must put in place

Any trader that publishes consumer reviews or review information, on a website, social media, a marketplace, a review site or in print, must take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent and remove banned content. Using a third party to monitor reviews does not remove that responsibility.

In practice, the CMA expects a published policy that clearly prohibits fake reviews and states your approach to incentivised reviews, a regular risk assessment, and processes to detect, investigate and act on banned content. Checks can include manual sampling and automated tools that spot patterns such as reviews from the same IP address or a sudden spike of very positive or negative reviews.

Frequently asked questions

Is a review written by an employee a fake review?

Not necessarily fake, but CMA208 says that hiding the circumstances in which a review was written may be misleading, including where the reviewer has a financial interest in the trader, for example as an employee or shareholder, or a commercial link such as being a supplier. Asking a member of staff to write a review is also a form of commissioning, so the incentive must be made apparent.

Can I enter reviewers into a prize draw?

According to CMA208, offering the chance to earn a reward that does not guarantee a direct benefit, such as entry into a prize draw, is unlikely to amount to commissioning under the banned practice. Incentivised reviews are not prohibited as such, but publishers must distinguish them from other reviews.

Can I hide or delete negative reviews?

Removing fake negative reviews is expected, but suppressing genuine negative reviews is problematic. The CMA says a trader may infringe the law by suppressing genuine reviews, cherry picking positive ones, or only encouraging satisfied customers to leave reviews.

For developers and agents

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MCP for your agents

This base's MCP server URL (tools ask_base and search_base):

MCP URL
https://kopik.io/api/mcp?base=uk-cma-consumer-law-reviews-influencers-green-claims
Claude Code, Cursor and other clients
Claude Code
claude mcp add --transport http kopik-uk-cma-consumer-law-reviews-influencers-green-claims "https://kopik.io/api/mcp?base=uk-cma-consumer-law-reviews-influencers-green-claims" --header "Authorization: Bearer kpk_…"
JSON config (mcpServers)
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kopik-uk-cma-consumer-law-reviews-influencers-green-claims": {
      "url": "https://kopik.io/api/mcp?base=uk-cma-consumer-law-reviews-influencers-green-claims",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer kpk_…"
      }
    }
  }
}

REST API for your apps

mode is "answer" (written answer + sources) or "passages" (raw passages only). Add an optional maxPriceCents to cap the price: if the base costs more, the call is refused and nothing is charged.

curl
curl -X POST https://kopik.io/api/v1/bases/uk-cma-consumer-law-reviews-influencers-green-claims/query \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer kpk_…" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"question": "Your question here", "mode": "answer"}'

Getting started

  1. Create a key in your dashboard and top up your credit.
  2. Replace kpk_… with your key.
  3. Full details (responses, errors, JS and Python examples): developer docs.