Last Updated April 29, 2025
PowerReviews aims to ensure that all reviews published using our technology are authentic and presented in a way that accurately demonstrates their value to a potential online purchase decision. This article explains these processes, while referencing relevant regulation.
PowerReviews requires that all of our clients comply with our PowerReviews Authenticity Policy and PowerReviews Moderation Policy. PowerReviews’ technology supports our clients in monitoring for fake or fraudulent reviews and publishing reviews in a way that is transparent and not misleading.
EU Omnibus Directive
The EU Omnibus Directive 2019/2161 (“Omnibus Directive”) for better enforcement and modernization of EU consumer protection rules came into effect on 7 January 2020. EU member states had until 28 November 2021 to adopt and publish measures to comply with the Omnibus Directive and to apply those measures by 28 May 2022.
The goal of the Omnibus Directive is to provide enhanced EU consumer protections when making online purchases, such as verifying whether the review was submitted by a user or purchaser of the product, whether the review was sponsored or influenced by a contractual relationship with the trader and prohibiting traders from submitting fake consumer reviews and endorsements or commissioning others to do so and from manipulating consumer reviews and endorsements.
The Omnibus Directive applies to all traders targeting EU based consumers, regardless of the trader’s location.
This commentary is provided for context only; traders targeting EU based consumers should take independent professional legal advice on their responsibilities under the Omnibus Directive.
PowerReviews Technology: Tools to Ensure Authenticity
Product Review Verification
With transparency to consumers being a key mandate of the Omnibus Directive, Business to Consumer (“B2C”) companies will need to verify that the product reviews posted on their eCommerce website are genuine reviews submitted by consumers that have purchased or used their product. B2C companies should provide information to consumers on how checks are made and provide clear information to consumers on how reviews are processed, which could include technical means to verify the reliability of the person posting a review.
As a ratings and reviews SaaS service provider, PowerReviews assists our clients in collecting reviews in the following ways:
- We solicit reviews from consumers after they have purchased a product from our client’s website by sending a post-purchase email that is based on transaction data from our client.
- We collect reviews from consumers that visit your website and use the “Write A Review” option on a product display page (PDP).
For more information on how PowerReviews collects product reviews from consumers, see our Review Collection Documentation.
Collecting Product Reviews from Consumers
Based on transaction data provided by a client, our clients can send post-purchase emails to consumers requesting that they leave a rating and review for the product/service recently purchased.
Post-purchase emails can be sent to consumers following a purchase made either online or in-store. The email links the consumer to the Write A Review form which includes a parameter that informs PowerReviews that the review is being written by a consumer that actually purchased the item. This review will be badged as submitted by a “Verified Buyer”.
In addition to the post-purchase solicitation process, consumers may submit a review when visiting our clients’ eCommerce sites by clicking on the Write A Review button. Reviews submitted through this process are organically collected; however, the review may not have been written by a consumer that actually purchased or used the product. Since PowerReviews is unable to authenticate the exact nature of this consumer’s experience with the product, we will not identify and badge this review as a “Verified Buyer” review (more on badges below).
Verifying Review Authenticity
PowerReviews takes the authenticity of review content extremely seriously. As consumers ourselves who rely on reviews and other user-generated content to inform purchase decisions, the belief that shoppers should be able to trust the reviews they read online is a fundamental principle of PowerReviews’ business philosophy. While ultimately, it is the responsibility of the B2C business to verify the authenticity and validity of any content published on its own website, the PowerReviews’ services include several tools and safeguards to assist our clients in this process.
Fraud Detection
IP Address Monitoring
We recommend – as part of our best practice implementation – that any client who uses our services, allow PowerReviews to view any user’s IP address who submits a review. When a client sends a user’s IP address as part of the review, PowerReviews will be able to monitor IP address activity to flag and/or block any IPs that have any history of providing fraudulent or illegitimate reviews or other user-generated content across any company using our platform.
Mass advertising, trolling, and attempts at automated content submission are all sources of inauthentic content. PowerReviews also offers tools that help flag and block reviews deemed inauthentic by leveraging a JavaScript-based device reputation technology.
Duplicate Review Check
PowerReviews has a best-in-class moderation process to verify the relevancy, appropriateness, and authenticity of each review for our clients. As a part of this verification process, duplicate reviews are also identified and unpublished from consumer view. For more information on the PowerReviews moderation process see our Moderation Guidelines.
Tracking Review Source
In addition to monitoring reviews for fraudulent behavior, PowerReviews also provides our clients with the tools to track the source of any specific review, without identifying the specific consumer.
With proper configuration, PowerReviews’ clients are able to accurately identify reviews that have been submitted by:
- a consumer that has purchased the product
- a consumer that has verified their email address
- a staff member of the client’s organization
- a consumer that was incentivized to write the review (e.g. giveaway or contest)
- a consumer that wrote a review after receiving a free product sample
Tracking how each review was sourced allows B2C businesses to provide valuable information to consumers about the source of each review they read. This information offers important context for consumers as they make purchase decisions.
Providing Consumer Transparency within Review Displays
To ensure that consumers are readily able to access information about the nature of a given review, PowerReviews provides badges and disclosure statements alongside each review displayed using our review display technology. You can read more about review badges and disclosures here: Review Badges and Review Disclosures.
Review Badging
PowerReviews employs the following badges on reviews displayed on our clients’ websites based on the source of that review.
Verified Buyer
A Verified Buyer (example of this badge below) is an individual who has purchased the reviewed product directly from the company displaying the review. The review was submitted through a specific process that tracks purchase history. This designation is intended to clearly identify consumers who are submitting reviews of products that they own.
Verified Reviewer
A Verified Reviewer (example of this badge below) is an individual who has confirmed their email address through our verification process. This designation is intended to clearly identify consumers who are submitting reviews using a valid email address.
Staff Reviewer
A Staff Reviewer (example of this badge below) is an individual for whom PowerReviews has matched their email address domain to the domain of the B2C business selling the product. This badge is used to make sure that consumers know if/when the person posting a review has a potential affiliation to the B2C business selling the product/service.
Review Disclosures
Our technology also tags reviews with specific disclosure statements in the following scenarios.
Sampled Product Review
A review that was written by a consumer after receiving a free product sample will display the disclosure in the example below:
Incentivized Review
A review that was written by a consumer who was incentivized to write a review. Examples of such incentives include an entry into a contest or sweepstakes, see the examples below:
