LONDON — Google pledged to crack down on fake online reviews with tougher punishments for rogue reviewers and businesses that try to profit from them, British regulators said Friday following an investigation.
The Competition and Markets Authority said that Google has committed to “rigorous steps” to detect and remove sham reviews, so it can quickly identify and investigate businesses and reviewers trying to benefit from the phony posts.
Google will delete all reviews written by people who repeatedly write fake or misleading reviews — either positive or negative — for U.K. businesses, the watchdog said. These reviewers will also be banned from posting new reviews, whether or not they’re in the U.K.
Businesses that try to artificially boost their star ratings will also face consequences. Warning alerts will be slapped on their Google profiles, and new reviews will not be allowed. And if they repeatedly engage in fake review activity, all their reviews for the past six months or more will be deleted, the CMA said.
Google’s also adding a way for consumers to quickly and easily report shady reviews, including payments or rewards offered for a positive review.
“The changes we’ve secured from Google ensure robust processes are in place, so people can have confidence in reviews and make the best possible choices,” the watchdog’s CEO Sarah Cardell said. “They also help to create a level-playing field for fair dealing firms.”
Google said its “longstanding investments to combat fraudulent content help us block millions of fake reviews yearly – often before they ever get published.” The company said in a brief statement that its “work with regulators around the world, including the CMA, is part of our ongoing efforts to fight fake content and bad actors.”
A separate investigation into Amazon over fake reviews is ongoing, the watchdog said. It opened the probes in 2021 to examine whether the two companies broke U.K. consumer law by failing to protect shoppers. It began looking into phony reviews on some big websites amid the boom in online shopping fueled by the coronavirus pandemic.
Phony reviews have long plagued the internet. Some online travel and shopping platforms have banded together to fight fraudulent reviews. Authorities in the U.S. meanwhile have also been trying to crack down, with the Federal Trade Commission banning their sale or purchase and fining businesses and individuals who engage in the practice.
Fake reviews are typically traded on private social media groups between fake review brokers and businesses willing to pay. Sometimes, such reviews are initiated by businesses that offer customers incentives such as gift cards for positive feedback.
Scotland’s professional football clubs have been reported to the UK’s competition watchdog over the rules for registering child footballers.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been asked to investigate how young players are registered with elite clubs and move between them.
Complaints to the CMA from Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner and grassroots campaigners argue the current system exploits young players and breaks competition law.
The Scottish Football Association (SFA) said significant progress has been made to protect young players involved in the game.
The SFA added its registration system was in line with world governing body Fifa and pointed out it had already amended some of its processes after input from the children’s commissioner.
Children can register for a professional club in Scotland from the age of 10 and a compensation system is in place when young players moves between elite teams.
Players in these teams in the 15 to 17-year-old age group sign for a two-year period that can only be terminated if both parties agree.
It is these rules, along with a cap on moves between clubs, which critics claim are restricting young players’ freedom of movement.
In 2020, Holyrood’s petitions committee raised “genuine concerns” about whether the current registration system adequately protects the rights of children and called for reform.
The SFA has since changed some of its registration rules but Nick Hobbs, head of advice and investigation at the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, claimed they have not gone far enough.
He said: “The current rules give child footballers less protection, and less control over their own lives, than adult professionals.
“There is a massive power imbalance between them and the clubs they sign for which can amount to economic exploitation – this is a fundamental breach of their human rights.
“We feel that the SFA is effectively failing children, this is something that has needed to change for a very long time now.
“They have not been willing to do it voluntarily so we are hoping they will now be forced to do it.”
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Scott Robertson, co-founder of the Real Grassroots campaign group which brought the 2010 Holyrood petition pushing for changes to the registration system, has also submitted a complaint to the CMA.
He said: “We have seen many examples of our professional clubs parading players as young as ten in front of press stands signing registration forms.
“The kids, and some parents, think it’s the road to riches without being informed of the implications.
“Rather than promote competition and grow our game, these rules have done untold damage to Scottish football. The clubs place their interests and profit margins before kids.”
What are the registration rules?
The vast majority of youth players in Scotland between the ages of ten and 17 sign amateur registration forms which last one season.
For those in the elite youth football teams, which come under the SFA’s Club Academy Scotland (CAS) programme and are run by 11 of the country’s professional clubs, there are different rules.
Players in these teams in the 15 to 17-year-old age group sign for a two-year registration period that can only be terminated if both parties agree.
It is in this period when players are usually offered their first professional contract or released by clubs.
It is also possible to cancel a registration if a player has played in less than 25% of the eligible games or via an appeal to a SFA Young Players Wellbeing Panel.
The movement of young players between CAS clubs can also be subject to compensation to cover training costs when the player signs their first professional contract.
Elite level clubs can only sign one player from a club within the same age group each season.
The SFA has previously said its registration forms are a binding legal document but not a contract, something which campaigners and some lawyers disagree with.
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Billy Gilmour is one of the stars of the current men’s national team who came through the club academy system as a youngster
What can the CMA do?
The CMA is the UK government body responsible for taking action against businesses and individuals that take part in anti-competitive behaviour.
The CMA will spend the next few months considering the two complaints made against both the SFA and SPFL before deciding if it is going to launch a formal investigation into the claims.
The complaints centre on the argument that the current setup amounts to an anti-competitive ‘no poach’ deal – where clubs effectively agree not to compete to recruit youth players from each other.
The complainants will also argue recent developments, such as the Lassana Diarra and Fifa case, mean players should have more power to move and work where they wish.
If the watchdog concludes there has been an infringement of competition laws it can issue a fine and direct Scotland’s football authorities to modify or cease their registration rules.
Footballer Kieran Gibbons says he fell foul of the registration when he wanted to move clubs when he was a teenager
Footballer Kieran Gibbons has described the push to allow young players more freedom to move between clubs as a “no brainer”.
The 29-year-old, who currently plays for Tranent, but when he was 13, he was registered to one of the SFA’s club academy teams and wanted to leave.
“The training facilities were not the best and didn’t even have changing rooms,” he explained.
“I was travelling a distance and had to come straight from school and had grown tired of this. When the time came to sign on for the following season I asked to leave.”
Kieran said the club “were not happy” but agreed to let him go – though he says unbeknownst to him they held onto the registration.
The player says this only came to light when other senior teams in Scotland invited him for trials and were told by the club he had just left that they would need to pay a £9,000 fee to take over his registration.
He added: “At that time no one was able or willing to pay that for a 13-year-old, who may or may not make it to professional level.”
Kieran says he was then “left in limbo” for more than nine months, retuning to amateur football, before eventually moving to Aberdeen for his first professional contract.
“I was just a kid and I just wanted to play football. There needs to be a change so people in my situation can more easily walk away,” he added.
‘Significant progress’
A spokesperson for the SFA said it had “consulted extensively” on the subject of improving youth football in the near 15 years since the issue first went in front of Holyrood’s petitions committee.
They added: “We were pleased that the report published in 2020 by the public petitions committee acknowledged the significant progress made to protect children and young people involved in our game.
“Since the publication of the report, we have continued to evolve our policies and procedures in line with the Fifa statutes.
“Indeed, we have successfully amended the process of reimbursement of training costs based on input from the children’s commissioner, ensuring training compensation is only due when the player signs their first professional contract.”
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Dutch data protection watchdog on Tuesday issued facial recognition startup Clearview AI with a fine of 30.5 million euros ($33.7 million) over its creation of what the agency called an “illegal database” of billion of photos of faces.
The Netherlands’ Data Protection Agency, or DPA, also warned Dutch companies that using Clearview’s services is also banned.
The data agency said that New York-based Clearview “has not objected to this decision and is therefore unable to appeal against the fine.”
But in a statement emailed to The Associated Press, Clearview’s chief legal officer, Jack Mulcaire, said that the decision is “unlawful, devoid of due process and is unenforceable.”
The Dutch agency said that building the database and insufficiently informing people whose images appear in the database amounted to serious breaches of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.
“Facial recognition is a highly intrusive technology, that you cannot simply unleash on anyone in the world,” DPA chairman Aleid Wolfsen said in a statement.
“If there is a photo of you on the Internet — and doesn’t that apply to all of us? — then you can end up in the database of Clearview and be tracked. This is not a doom scenario from a scary film. Nor is it something that could only be done in China,” he said.
DPA said that if Clearview doesn’t halt the breaches of the regulation, it faces noncompliance penalties of up to 5.1 million euros ($5.6 million) on top of the fine.
Mulcaire said in his statement that Clearview doesn’t fall under EU data protection regulations.
“Clearview AI does not have a place of business in the Netherlands or the EU, it does not have any customers in the Netherlands or the EU, and does not undertake any activities that would otherwise mean it is subject to the GDPR,” he said.
In June, Clearview reached a settlement in an Illinois lawsuit alleging its massive photographic collection of faces violated the subjects’ privacy rights, a deal that attorneys estimate could be worth more than $50 million. Clearview didn’t admit any liability as part of the settlement agreement.
The case in Illinois consolidated lawsuits from around the U.S. filed against Clearview, which pulled photos from social media and elsewhere on the internet to create a database that it sold to businesses, individuals and government entities.
