Sussex Checkatrade boss slams online review site (From The Argus)

Sussex Checkatrade boss slams online review site

6:52pm Wednesday 8th February 2012 in Business News By John Keenan, business editor

The boss of a reputation management company has slammed an online review provider.

Kevin Byrne, managing director of Checkatrade, said that the structure of TripAdvisor is fundamentally flawed.

His comments follow a ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that misleading reviews could be featured on the travel review site. An ASA spokesman said that reviews could be placed on the site without any form of verification.

He said: “Whilst TripAdvisor took steps to monitor and deal with suspi- cious activity, it was possible that non- genuine content would appear on the site undetected.”

Mr Byrne, boss of Selsey-based Checkatrade, which helps to identify rogue traders, said a genuinely impartial review site involves gaining and retaining public trust.

He said: “For a review site to provide reliable, trustworthy information it must stringently vet and verify reviews from the very beginning, starting with a simple email to confirm a review is genuine. It is advisable to spot check a proportion of reviews by phone or further emails. Certainly all negative reviews should be followed up and rigorously checked.

“In addition review sites should con- duct thorough background checks on its members and users, rather than solely relying on anonymous public reviews. It is only through proper verification that review sites can guarantee honest, reliable feedback for customers and a fair, accurate assessment for busi- nesses.” TripAdvisor said that the marketing material referred to by the ASA is no longer in use and the integrity of the review site remains intact after the ruling.

A spokesman for the company said: “We think this ruling flies in the face of common sense and is unrealistic in its expectations from sites like ours. The ASA has taken a highly technical view around some marketing copy that was used in a limited capacity; complaints were upheld on the basis that we could not provide 100% certainty that every single review on the site was written by a real traveller and could be trusted. No system, verified or not, could provide this.”