EU elab - Fake Review Detector (in development)

The eLab is currently developing a tool to more quickly detect fake reviews en masse. Fake reviews are a growing problem in online retail markets. Large quantities of fake or misleading reviews can skew results and make comparison of quality and value difficult for consumers.  Investigations have revealed a thriving market in fake reviews, showing reviews can either be generated by machines, or written by people for goods or cash. Around 30% of fake online reviews come from review farms and/or users who have no experience with the product.

The tool uses natural language processing which can flag whether the review was computer generated or written by a person that has, in fact, not used the product or service. The purpose of the tool is to flag when a retailer or a platform has a high number of suspicious reviews, which may mean that the trader needs to step up its measures to ensure that consumers only see the genuine reviews.