Every honest business deserves to be judged by genuine customer experiences—not by fraudulent reviews.

Online review platforms have become an important part of how consumers choose products and services. Honest positive and negative reviews help people make informed decisions and encourage businesses to improve. They play a valuable role in today's digital economy.

However, many business owners report that fraudulent reviews—particularly fake negative reviews—can unfairly damage their reputation, reduce customer trust, and cause significant financial harm. When businesses believe a review is false or malicious, they often feel that existing reporting and moderation processes do not always provide an adequate or timely solution.

This petition is not against honest customer feedback. Genuine criticism is essential and should always be protected. Instead, this petition calls for stronger safeguards against reviews that are fabricated, malicious, or posted by people who have not had a genuine experience with the business.

Trustpilot is one of the world's best-known review platforms, which is why it is referenced in this petition. While Trustpilot states that it invests in detecting and removing fake reviews and continuously improves its moderation systems, many businesses continue to express concerns about reviews they believe are fraudulent remaining on the platform or being difficult to challenge effectively.

No review platform can realistically prevent every fake review. Nevertheless, because these platforms have significant influence over the reputation of businesses, they should be expected to take reasonable and effective measures to detect abuse, investigate credible reports of fraudulent reviews, and improve transparency in their moderation processes.

We respectfully call on governments and regulators to consider stronger legal standards for online review platforms, including measures such as:

• Requiring reasonable verification that reviewers had a genuine interaction with the business before publishing reviews.
• Improving transparency in how disputed reviews are investigated and decided.
• Providing businesses with a fair and meaningful opportunity to challenge reviews they reasonably believe to be fraudulent.
• Requiring review platforms to maintain effective systems for detecting organized review manipulation and abuse.
• Establishing clear regulatory standards that encourage responsible moderation while protecting freedom of expression and genuine consumer feedback.

This petition does not claim that every negative review is fake, nor does it allege that any review platform intentionally publishes fraudulent reviews. Rather, it calls for stronger accountability, improved verification practices, and fairer protections for both consumers and honest businesses.

Consumers deserve trustworthy reviews.

Businesses deserve fair treatment.

Together, we can encourage a review ecosystem that protects genuine opinions while making it more difficult for fraudulent reviews to harm honest people and legitimate businesses.

Please sign this petition if you believe online review platforms should be held to high standards of transparency, fairness, and accountability.