Coupang is being sued for giving positive reviews to its own brands

Foreign e-commerce platforms strictly prohibit fake reviews, and platforms such as Amazon have also removed or banned sellers who fake reviews. However, on the other hand, "the officials are allowed to set fires, but the people are not allowed to light lamps", and there have been frequent reports that platforms favor their own brands. Recently, the Korean e-commerce platform Coupang was sued for manipulating reviews of its own brands.

On March 15, local time , six non-governmental organizations, including the People's Union for Solidarity and Democratic Participation, filed a lawsuit against Coupang with the Korea Fair Trade Commission, claiming that it used employees to write false reviews for its own-brand products.

According to the organizers, these false reviews came from CPLB products , a subsidiary of Coupang , involving about 4,200 products . They said that since July last year , Coupang and CPLB have forced employees to write false reviews without compensation to gain more exposure for the products, which violated the Monopoly Ordinance and the Fair Trade Act.

The organizations also pointed out that the Coupang incident once again demonstrated the urgency of the Online Platform Fairness Act , which is currently pending in Congress , and its purpose is to prevent platforms from using their monopoly position to engage in unfair business practices.

Coupang denied this and stated that the company's product reviews are open and transparent. "Their names are clearly displayed in the reviews, and 99.9% of product reviews are written by non-employee customers."

This is not the first time Coupang has faced a lawsuit regarding unfair business practices. In August last year , Coupang abused its platform position to force suppliers including LG Home and Healthcare to lower the prices of products sold on its platform and forced them to purchase advertising and other unfair practices, and was fined a total of 3.29 billion won, or about 17 million yuan .

In addition to Coupang , Amazon has also been criticized for favoring its own brands. Exposure is the main source of sales for e-commerce sellers, and this kind of favoritism has added more marketing costs to sellers. The platform has already charged commissions from sellers, so it should be based on the principle of fairness and justice.

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