Trusted trader and care home review sites: improvement of practices

Five online review sites have committed to improvements that will give people a more complete picture when making buying decisions.

Timetable

Date Action
11 February 2016 Outcome of work with trusted trader and care home review sites published
18 January 2016 Case opened into the practices of a number of online review sites
19 June 2015 Report on call for information into online reviews and endorsements published

Case closed

11 February 2016: Two websites for finding tradespeople and three care home review sites have all agreed to improve their practices to address concerns that were raised following a call for information by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on online reviews and endorsements.

This guidance was published prior to the unfair commercial practices provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act) coming into force on 6 April 2025. These provisions contain broadly similar prohibitions against unfair and misleading commercial practices as under the previous legislation, the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs).

More detail on the legislative differences between the DMCC Act and the CPRs is available in the technical note.

For further guidance, read Unfair commercial practices

If your business hosts reviews, check the CMA’s guidance on fake review practices for more guidance in this area.

Contacts

Updates to this page

Published 11 February 2016
Last updated 11 February 2016 show all updates
  1. Case closed: Advisory letters and summary of agreements published.

  2. First published.