Can block a launchUnited States

Buying or selling fake reviews is a finable offence

A Federal Trade Commission rule effective 21 October 2024 prohibits the sale or purchase of fake consumer reviews and testimonials, including AI-generated ones and those from people with no actual experience of the product, and allows the FTC to seek civil penalties against knowing violators.

Seeding a US launch with reviews is no longer a growth tactic with reputational downside, it is a rule with a fine attached, and the agency named AI-generated reviews explicitly.

Limits how to read A third-party review platform is table stakes

95 of a possible 97Tier A, primary document or measured outcome. Nothing at this tier is allowed past 97, however good it looks.

Verified August 5, 2026Rechecked every 180 days, next by February 1, 2027.

Constraint

Held since October 21, 2024A rule, law or policy that limits what you may do or say. The earliest date we are willing to say this held. It may well have been true before that; we do not backdate a record past the evidence we have read. Supported, version 1.

This entry is wrong if

The FTC repeals or stays the rule, or a court vacates it, or the Federal Register record shows an effective date other than 21 October 2024.

Written before the record was published, not after. If you can show this, send it to hello@tryorbt.com and the correction goes on the record with the entry.

Evidence

Tier Aregulation
U.S. Federal Trade Commission: Final Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials
The Federal Trade Commission today announced a final rule that will combat fake reviews and testimonials by prohibiting their sale or purchase and allow the agency to seek civil penalties against knowing violators.
Read 2026-08-05 · Public domain · page hash 5b8afaf9a768
Tier Aregulation
Office of the Federal Register: Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (89 FR 68034)
effective_on: "2024-10-21", citation: "89 FR 68034"
The effective date is taken from the Federal Register record rather than from the announcement, which states only that the rule takes effect 60 days after publication and leaves the arithmetic to the reader.
Read 2026-08-05 · Public domain · page hash 61f281962cdc

History

v1createdAugust 5, 2026
Initial entry from primary regulator text, read 2026-08-04.

Append-only. Nothing in this list is edited or removed once written, including the entries that record our own mistakes. Every change to every record is on the corrections page, and the same log is in entries.json under revisions.

reviews
testimonials
ftc
enforcement
social-proof
compliance

Cite this entry

“Buying or selling fake reviews is a finable offence”, The Orbt Market Index 0.1.0, entry omr:us:fake-reviews-carry-civil-penalties, retrieved September 9, 2026, https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/us--fake-reviews-carry-civil-penalties. Dataset: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22679129

Orbt, "Buying or selling fake reviews is a finable offence," Orbt Market Index, entry omr:us:fake-reviews-carry-civil-penalties, verified August 5, 2026, https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/us--fake-reviews-carry-civil-penalties.

@misc{orbt-us-fake-reviews-carry-civil-penalties,
  title        = {Buying or selling fake reviews is a finable offence},
  author       = {{Orbt}},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.22679129},
  note         = {The Orbt Market Index 0.1.0 (dataset DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22679129), entry omr:us:fake-reviews-carry-civil-penalties. Verified 2026-08-05},
  howpublished = {\url{https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/us--fake-reviews-carry-civil-penalties}},
  license      = {Orbt Index Public Licence. Free to quote and cite; not to redistribute}
}

For a deck, a brief or a chat.

Free to quote, cite and act on. Not to resell or redistribute — the sources ask that of us, and each one’s terms are named. Machine-readable: entries.json carries this record under the id omr:us:fake-reviews-carry-civil-penalties, with the same evidence and falsifier.

Published free, as reference, without warranty. This is not legal, regulatory, customs, tax or investment advice, and it is not a substitute for reading the primary document, which every record here names, dates and links, precisely so that you can.

We derive from public sources and we do not independently audit them. Where a source says its own records are unverified, that carries through to us. What we do promise is that every figure is recomputed from stored rows, every claim publishes the observation that would overturn it, and every correction goes on the public log. If something here is wrong, tell us and it changes in the open.

Orbt is not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting for U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Office of the Federal Register. They are cited as sources. Go and read them directly — they are more complete than we are, and they are linked from every record that rests on them.

This entry is wrong if

Evidence

History

Cite this entry

Read next