Building a world of trust for e-commerce

AirBnB is taking San Francisco to US District Court over rules the City recently approved.

According to the new rules, AirBnB must allow rental housing listings on its site only for hosts who have registered with the City. The problem with the City's new registration requirement, the company said, is that it provides fines and penalties on AirBnB.

Another issue of trust with the existing business model is the generation of unwelcome commercial operators converting affordable rental housing to illegal hotels while citizens have difficulties to find apartments. The traditional hospitality business is also impacted and the administration must recover taxes.

The new rules require AirBnB to only list rentals for hosts who are registered with San Francisco. That violates federal law, argues AirBnB. Note: within the last year, over 200 listings have been removed in SF according to the community marketplace AirBnB.

Restoring a trusted relationship is now needed. Why not relying on a third-party certification company to verify the host identity?

Make your own opinion.

Online reviews can play an important role in helping consumers make the right choices.

In order to maintain people’s trust, review sites should check and present reviews in a way that avoids distorting the overall picture presented to people that read them. If your business’s website allows people to review products or services – whether they are yours, or someone else’s – you should publish all genuine, relevant and lawful reviews. You should also make sure that your processes to collect, moderate and publish reviews don’t hinder this. Updated February 2016

Online reviews - advice for businesses

In 2016, the CMA took action against an online marketing company that posted fake reviews on behalf of its clients.

The company wrote fake reviews on behalf of small businesses from a wide variety of sectors and posted them on different websites. Online reviews play an important role in helping potential customers decide whether to buy a product or service. Writing or commissioning fake reviews could lead to civil or criminal action. Once discovered, it can also damage the image of the brand and erode customers’ trust in reviews and review sites.

Updated march 2016

Websites that publish reviews should make sure that they provide the full picture to consumers and comply with the law.

Businesses, media agencies or individuals that publish opinions online should make sure that content which has been paid for is clearly identifiable. Otherwise the business, media agency and the person publishing the content might break the law.

This summary explains what review sites, businesses, media agencies and those publishing opinions online should do to make sure they comply with consumer protection law.

Updated April 2016