Information about the handling of the reviews
The new information obligation applies to any trader that provides access to consumer reviews, including where a trader promotes on its online interface the reviews made available by another trader, such as a specialised review tool. Recital 47 of Directive (EU) 2019/2161 explains the scope of the requirement in a broad manner. Namely, the information must cover not only the specific measures to check that reviews originate from consumers who have actually used or purchased the product but also the processing of reviews more generally. This includes information on whether all reviews are published, how they are sourced, how average review scores are calculated and if they are influenced by sponsored reviews or by contractual relations with the traders hosted on the platform. Traders’ information about the steps taken to ensure that the published reviews originate from consumers who have actually used or purchased the product is important also because it will be analysed to assess whether the trader can actually present reviews as consumer reviews in line with the new point 23b of Annex I. This information must be clear, intelligible, and made available ‘when providing access to consumer reviews’, i.e. information should be made available from the same interface where reviews are published for consultation, including via clearly identified and prominently displayed hyperlinks.
Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-25 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.