FTC fines online fashion retailer for blocking negative reviews of its products

The Federal Trade Commission yesterday announced it has fined the online fashion retailer Fashion Nova because of blocked negative reviews of its products from being posted to its website. The fine is $4.2 million and Fashion Nova is prohibited from suppressing customer reviews of its products.

FTC says Fashion Nova misrepresented the product reviews on its website reflected the views of all purchasers who submitted reviews, when in fact it suppressed reviews with ratings lower than four stars out of five.

FTC now rulled Fashion Nova must post on its website all customer reviews of products currently being sold—with the exception of reviews that contain obscene, sexually explicit, racist, or unlawful content and reviews that are unrelated to the product or customer services like shipping or returns.

In January, this year, FTC released guidance about online reviews.