In a bizarre twist in the battle to rid the industry of fraudulent reviews, reputation management firm Kwikchex has unveiled a star-rating system for review sites.
Under the system, review sites are awarded a star-rating from five (for sites where reviewers are identified and purchase of a product or service is verified) to one star (those that have little means to authenticate the content).
In this latest move, Kwikchex is setting itself up as the consumer champion and the company plans to publish its ratings, with companies welcome to challenge them if they disagree.
Chris Emmins, boss of the reputation management firm, stresses consumer reassurance has always been a core focus for the company which has been building up a 'global consumer group' and plans to extend it to act as part of its 'quality assurance resource'.
It has already 'provisionally' awarded Booking.com five stars, TripAdvisor and Yelp two stars and Google reviews one star, and says it is contacting site owners once it has published a rating.
Alongside the star-rating system, Kwikchex is also making a submission to the Securities & Exchange Commission regarding concerns it has over TripAdvisor's ability to authenticate reviews.
A further submission to the European Court of Human Rights is also being made regarding individuals being unable to defend themselves against defamation and harassment online.
In January, following a complaint made by Kwikchex, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled against TripAdvisor saying the site should stop claiming reviews are real, honest or trusted.
Here is the rating criteria in full:
NB: Rating image via Shutterstock.