The Italian government is aiming to eradicate fake reviews and opinions on the internet about restaurants and hotels, a phenomenon that is causing inc

Italy plans crackdown on fake restaurant and hotel reviews

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2025-01-27 00:30:02

The Italian government is aiming to eradicate fake reviews and opinions on the internet about restaurants and hotels, a phenomenon that is causing increasing concern to the sector due to the considerable damage it can cause to establishments. The influence of reviews on consumers when making a decision about a restaurant, hotel, or museum is a fact supported by numerous studies. In recent years, an illicit industry has developed that exploits and takes advantage of the value provided by public customer evaluations.

Nowadays, leaving a fake review online, whether it is favorable — praising the quality of a restaurant’s dishes — or negative — criticizing, for example, customer service or cleanliness — is quite easy: it takes just a few minutes and can be done under the cover of the anonymity offered by review apps. Posting opinions that do not correspond to reality can lead to practices that are harmful to companies, such as unfair competition, covert advertising, or fraud, which also negatively affects consumers. Removing these types of publications from the internet, however, is usually very complicated.

Giorgia Meloni’s government has launched a fight against fake online reviews to curb this phenomenon. The Cabinet recently approved the first bill in Italy that contemplates the possibility of introducing a regulation to restrict the use of online product and service review platforms. Among other things, it proposes mandatory identification of users who leave reviews, the right of reply for establishments, and the prohibition of the buying and selling of reviews.

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