Last week, the FTC announced yet another settlement with a company regarding its customer review practices. This case involved a popular cosmetics brand that retailed at Sephora—Sunday Riley. According to the FTC, Sunday Riley’s managers and Chief Executive Officer ordered employees and interns to create fake Sephora accounts and submit reviews for their products. The FTC had obtained multiple company emails showing the lengths Sunday Riley went to drive positive customer reviews, including evading Sephora’s detection by manipulating IP addresses.
Sunday Riley and its CEO settled with the FTC. In the settlement, the company and CEO did not admit fault, which is standard in these settlements. Similar to other recent settlements relating to “fake” customer reviews, the parties agreed on a go-forward basis to not make misrepresentations about the status of an endorser or customer review and to disclose material connections in endorsements and reviews.
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