Businesses which boost their star ratings will have warnings attached to them - fake reviewers will be banned.

The UK has reached an agreement with Google to counter fake reviews, with the internet giant committing to several remedies.

Google pledged to crack down on fake online reviews with tougher punishments for rogue reviewers and businesses that try to profit from them, British regulators said Friday following an investigation.

This includes deactivating the ability to add new reviews for businesses found to be using fake reviews, and deleting all existing reviews for at least six months if they repeated

Google has agreed to implement significant changes to its review systems following an investigation by the UK's CMA.

The search giant has offered to start punishing British businesses that boost their star ratings with fake reviews and the people that post them, ending the U.K. competition watchdog’s investigation into online reviews.

The watchdog started a formal investigation into Amazon and Alphabet's Google in 2021 over concerns they were not doing enough to combat fake reviews on their sites, which are use

Britain's competition regulator said on Friday it had secured important changes from Google to tackle fake reviews, including to sanction UK businesses that have boosted their star ratings with fake or misleading reviews.

Google has committed to cracking down on fake reviews by improving fraud detection and punishing offenders. Businesses using shady tactics will lose the ability to submit reviews or have existing ones wiped for at least six months.