What does the Consumer Review Fairness Act mean for consumers and online reviews?

Online reviews have steadily become a part of our everyday online world and an integral part of consumers’ buying process. Whether you’re proactively seeking out reviews for a product/service or responding to a Facebook friend’s post asking for provider recommendations, online reviews surround us. Reviews and star ratings show up in search engine results pages (in both organic listings and paid ads), and Google recently started showing third-party reviews in a company’s Google Knowledge Panel. Bottom line: You can’t avoid reviews, because they’re everywhere!