FTC's rule banning fake online reviews goes into effect

> the rule bans reviews and testimonials attributed to people who don’t exist or are generated by artificial intelligence, people who don’t have experience with the business or product/services, or misrepresent their experience.

Does the rule apply to private citizens? I wonder if the First Amendment agrees with penalizing private citizens "who don’t have experience with the business or product/services, or misrepresent their experience". They may mean that businesses can't engage people to write such reviews.

Also, how will they handle the scale of enforcement? The large companies seem easy - one enforcement action covers all of Yelp, another all of Amazon, etc. But what about the infinite reviews at smaller vendoers?

Overall though, I think this is great and long past due. The lawlessness of the Internet - fraud, spying, etc. - is absurd.

- "Does the rule apply to private citizens? "

The rules do not apply to "reviews that appear on a website or platform as a result of the business merely engaging in consumer review hosting." 16 CFR § 465.2(d)(2) (2024) They apply (paraphrased) to things someone is paying someone else to say. Things people write about products without being paid to write them are uncontroversially First Amendment-protected opinion.

https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/federal-register-no... (starts on page 153)

- "penalizing private citizens "who don’t have experience with the business or product/services, or misrepresent their experience". They may mean that businesses can't engage people to write such reviews."

I'm not a lawyer, but I think the AP article actually misstated the law. The multiple paragraphs related to this only seem to cover the case where a review "materially misrepresented... that the reviewer used or otherwise had experience with the product". The way the AP paraphrased this is different. They separated out "or misrepresent" with an "or", but it's not separate.