Italy Slaps Trustpilot with $4.6 Million Fine Over Misleading Review Practices
Report Highlights
- ◈ Hefty Fine: Italy's competition watchdog slapped Trustpilot with a 4 million euro ($4.6 million) penalty for consumer deception.
- ◈ Manipulated Ratings: Regulators found that businesses could handpick which customers received review invitations, skewing "verified" scores.
- ◈ Dark Patterns: The platform was accused of using deceptive interface designs to hide how its paid subscription services actually influence visibility.
Italian regulators have hammered popular review site Trustpilot with a massive fine after discovering the platform misled shoppers and allowed businesses to manipulate their public ratings.
The Italian Competition Authority came out on Monday and said it is fining Trustpilot and all its subsidiaries some 4 million euros (which is about $4.6 million American). The watchdog there made the conclusion the company did not properly check to see if user reviews were real, and also that they provided something of a distorted picture of just how their services actually operate. It is probably not that surprising that this legal blow sent Trustpilot shares tumbling by around 2.5 percent in early trading, as investors reacted to this regulatory crackdown.
Investigators, it seems, found out that Trustpilot’s so-called "verified" review system, well, it was far from impartial. According to the regulator that is looking into all of this, the platform actually allowed businesses to selectively choose exactly which customers were invited to even leave feedback to begin with. This kind of "handpicking" process meant that these companies could then steer all invitations toward only those customers who were already pretty satisfied, while at the same time ignoring those who were more likely to complain and make a fuss. Even with the fact that these reviews were being tagged as "verified," the watchdog is arguing that they really did not represent what the true customer experience was actually like, and so it gave kind of an unfair advantage to businesses who were paying for these services.
Beyond just the issue of skewed ratings, the Italian authority also accused Trustpilot of using what they called "dark patterns". What that means is deceptive digital designs in the interface, ones intended to trick users or just generally confuse them. In this particular case, the regulator found Trustpilot was obscuring important details about the platform, how it actually functions, and that they did not clearly tell you which businesses were actually paying for premium services. These are the kind of practices the regulator deemed a direct breach, of Italy’s consumer protection code, because they kept shoppers from making informed decisions that were based on data that was actually transparent.
This penalty comes after what has been a turbulent period for the review giant. Just some months ago, short-seller Grizzly Research said that Trustpilot was making fake profiles for the purpose of posting negative reviews. The idea was to pressure companies to buy those expensive subscriptions. While Trustpilot has denied those specific claims, the Italian ruling does confirm that how the platform manages “verified” feedback, well, that was legally flawed. Trustpilot, it should be noted, has not yet issued any formal response to the Italian fine.
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