Positive online reviews have become essential for any business marketing goods or services over the internet, especially for trendy services like food delivery and custom health product sales. But the FTC’s newly-announced settlement with startup healthy snack service UrthBox reminds marketers that online praise must be freely given, not bought—even if the compensation offered isn’t monetary. UrthBox, Inc., a San Francisco company offering direct-to-consumer snack deliveries on a subscription model, drew the FTC’s ire by maintaining an incentive program that offered free snack boxes to consumers who posted positive reviews on the BBB’s website. According to the FTC’s complaint, the plan was simple: when a consumer reached out to UrthBox, customer service representatives would offer to send free products to the consumer in exchange for a screenshot of a positive review. The program began with the customer service department at UrthBox, where…
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