By Edith Hancock


Alphabet-owned Google has offered to start punishing U.K. businesses that boost their star ratings with fake reviews and the people that post them, ending the U.K. competition watchdog's investigation into online reviews.

The search giant will put warning alerts on the profiles of businesses that use fake reviews to boost their star ratings, the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority said Friday.

It also offered to take "rigorous steps to detect and remove fake reviews" by investigating them, deleting fake reviews and banning their posters from leaving reviews in future, the authority said. It will also call out businesses that use fake reviews to improve their own status online.

Google will report to the CMA over a three-year period on its progress, the watchdog said.

The CMA started investigating Google and Amazon in 2021 over concerns the companies' oversight of online reviews breached consumer protection law. The regulator is still probing Amazon, it said, and will update that case in due course.


Write to Edith Hancock at edith.hancock@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-24-25 0520ET