The Afnor standard will appear this Thursday, July 4th, after 18 months of work and discussion among 43 organizations concerned with publishing consumer opinion onlines.
After 18 months of work, the first French standard to guide online consumer commentary, NF Z74-501, should be presented Wednesday by the French Association of standards (Afnor). Drawn up by 43 organizations, it will allow for the creation of a label for sites that are transparent and serious about posting comments. In the case of abusive use of the label, the offender will risk a fine of tens of thousands of euros. The UMIH (Hotel Industry and Trade Union) welcomes the final version of the Afnor standard and has shown itself to be satisfied on several points :
- Sites that manage spontaneous commentary should from now on request proof of purchase, and also allow internet users to identify and filter commentary backed by proof.
- Opinions older than 2 years, if they are still accessible online, will no longer be considered to calculate the establishment's grade.
- In the case of a change in ownership the review management site should delete and archive old reviews or clearly indicate that a change has taken place.
- Professionals can notify the review management site clearly presenting proof of the intention to prove their reputation, for the goal of obtaining financial compensation or otherwise to fight against e-reputation blackmail, called "chantutation".
- The right to respond is better regulated
The employer organization however expresses its disagreement with some points of the new standard and notes that there is still room to improve, particularly concerning :
- The creation of a free platform to alert professionals : the UMIH had proposed that upon the publication of a positive or negative review, the review site automatically and freely inform the establishments (by an email alert system).
- The addition of the words "paid review" or "reviews collected through a competition" in the interest of greater transparency, the UMIH believes that users should also be informed of concerned opinions (directly in receiving money or gifts or indirectly by participating in a competition).
"The hospitality sector and F&B are the two sectors of activity that generate the most opinions online and out professionals are hurt daily by the problem of false reviews or chantutation. While our industry is seeing accelerated digitalization, we are satisfied to see that the work done by the UMIH to create more transparent standards for professionals as well as consumers is finally being considered. Our efforts fall into the framework of actions favoring greater transparency and rules between professionals and consumers, but above all with review management sites / or online distribution sites", indicate union leaders.
