Have you ever searched for a product you’re interested in but know little about? Let’s say you want to buy a portable solar panel for your next road trip but don’t know what’s on the market. You type in Google, “Best portable solar panels.” Google will then produce a list of sponsored products (which hopefully you ignore), then articles that claim to reveal the “best portable panels” with some hook to get you to click on their piece.

In the last two (plus) years as a freelance writer, I’ve produced countless of these types of articles. No, not the solar panel’s ones, specifically. But I’ve written reviews designed to entice your clicks for so many similar niches.

Try Googling “best (product type),” and you’ll see a listicle article like the ones I used to type out in my daily grind. These articles are made with two things in mind:

1. To rank as high as possible on Google (this is the most important thing).
2. To get you to click on one of the products and buy them.

The website you’ve visited gets a kickback for every item purchased on the link, and the company whose “SEO” (search engine optimization) strategy and article production gets a bit off the top, too.

One client I used to write and edit for made over $150,000 a year from a single article with this strategy.

In essence, these articles are fake — fake content, fake reviews, and fake “expert” writers.

On these projects, I had to dig deep into certain products and companies, searching for anything positive to add to the top-ranked product on our list. Sometimes, the company has so little information about itself and the product it’s selling that I’ve had to be extra creative (vague) with the content.

I’ve also scrolled through some terrible reviews from people who have either received something that wasn’t the quality promised or wasn’t the product at all.

For some companies, the positive reviews were fake. Looking through the reviews deep enough, you may find the same glowing write-up copied and pasted under a different name. Sometimes, if the reviewer isn’t careful, you’ll see it copied, pasted, and posted under the same name.

FTC Announces Rules on Fake Reviews and Testimonials

And now, the (potential) bad news for these types of articles, the websites that have them, companies that produce them, and me, the writer who authors them. The Federal Trade Commission released a statement on August 14th that they’re setting new rules to clamp down on fake reviews.

Here’s what the FTC says they’re focusing on:

• Fake or False Consumer Reviews, Consumer Testimonials, and Celebrity Testimonials
• Buying Positive or Negative Reviews
• Insider Reviews and Consumer Testimonials
• Company-Controlled Review Websites
• Review Suppression
• Misuse of Fake Social Media Indicators

The FTC doesn’t state how it will enforce these rules, especially on companies established in countries that are a bit tax-dodging friendly. Maybe they’ll start with fines, which won’t do much but send a short-term ripple throughout the industry.

But ultimately, they’re trying to protect consumers from these companies that don’t care about the actual products they give you but want to make a quick and easy buck. The FTC is doing something, and that alone is exciting.

Perhaps this rule will end up doing nothing — stuck in lawsuits and legal litigation for years. Or these companies and their extensive legal teams will find loopholes to avoid any responsibility. Likely, they’ll simply pay the fines, a slap on the wrist for these corporations.

We’re headed down a road where search engines and media companies are able to flood the market with crappy products and create fake reviews. Consumers won’t be able to make the best judgement on the quality of products because there won’t be any “space” for other products — unless they let the search engine “wet its beak” with some of the profits.

I know some people hate regulations, claiming the market self-regulates and consumers will “buy the best product” based on reputation. But when you can generate your own reputation by buying and creating reviews, who can we trust?

My Main Source of Income

When I first got an editing and writing job creating these types of articles, I felt uneasy about writing these types of reviews. I easily shrugged it off, partly because I thought the person reading this article would do what it suggests — their own research by looking at outside reviews, checking ingredient lists, and asking your doctor or other professional. If someone gets duped, it’s their fault, right?

But it was mostly easy because it was one of my first consistent gigs, and I struggled for money. Watching your life savings dwindle will motivate you to abandon some of your morals, and this had low stakes for me at the time — I’m not killing anyone, right?

But recently, with the Google algorithm changes, a client I work for has branched out to creating Reddit posts, pages, and reviews. This is where things get more and more morally murky. Will we now create fake reviews on Reddit that we’re quoting in our fake reviews?

So yes, this makes me a hypocrite. I love Reddit; how real it is and how wholesome and informative it can be. Unfortunately, the last few years have seen the platform prioritize profit over this realness. They’ve partnered with Google (another topic for another day) to incorporate the search engine giant’s AI into the platform. What does Google get out of this? Access to Reddit’s Data API. If you’ve noticed in your Google searches recently that Reddit is the top search result, this is one of the reasons why.

How do I feel about it? now that the industry I work in affects something I love, I don’t want any part of it.

It goes deeper, too, of course, because the whole industry is pretty shady and misleading.

But this FTC rule means I may not worry about any of it anymore… because I won’t have any work with these particular clients. I’m looking at it as a positive.

There was a popular meme during COVID-19 lockdowns that was making the rounds. Dinosaurs looking at the asteroid about to hit the earth, the T-rex shouting, “Oh, God, the economy!” That’s exactly how I feel in this situation. This ruling will affect a ton of jobs, including mine. And by that, I mean I’ll likely lose this client and the most consistent income I’ve had over the last two years.

But in the end, these rules are a good thing, and I’m glad they’re going into effect in whatever form. That also means a change in tactics from clients that still want their content to reach a broad range of eyes. Hopefully, that means they’ll invest in companies that offer high-quality products. Naive? Perhaps.

Sure, the rules likely won’t change practices much, at least not at first. And perhaps the language in the rule is too vague. One line, for example, says that it’s illegal for someone “who did not have actual experience with the business or its products or services, or that misrepresent the experience of the person giving it.” The wording feels like it can be skirted around.

But at least there’s someone in a position of power who is addressing these issues, something the government is doing to get behind. The FTC’s job, after all, is to “protect and educate consumers.”

Because at the rate we’re going, it’ll be harder and harder to discern what’s true and false on the internet. The red flags we looked out for last year will no longer exist, flooded by a “pay to win” approach, an uneven playing field. And where do we go from there?

Maybe we put too much faith in these big corporations, assuming they have our best interests in mind — I know I’ve become complacent. Perhaps we just need a friendly reminder: never trust anything on the internet.