Walmart Fined for Fake Reviews in China
January 14 2022 - 7:13AM
Dow Jones News
By Clarence Leong and Justina Lee
Walmart Inc. has been fined 300,000 yuan ($47,171) in China for
falsifying product reviews on its app, local authorities in
Guangdong province said.
The Guangdong Administration for Market Regulation said in a
recent notice on its website that Walmart had been fined after
regulators determined that from October 2020 to May 2021 the U.S.
company's Sam's Club app automatically assigned products five-star
reviews when users had yet to rate the transacted products
themselves.
The regulator said the practice amounts to misleading consumers
and making false product promotion, in violation of the Anti-Unfair
Competition Law.
Walmart didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The fine comes in the wake of a series of regulatory moves
against the world's largest retailer in China.
In late December, the country's anticorruption watchdog
criticized Walmart and warned of a consumer boycott following
reports that the company had stopped stocking products from
Xinjiang in its China-based stores. Walmart declined to comment at
the time.
In early January, a media outlet backed by the country's market
regulator highlighted administrative action against the retailer
for alleged cybersecurity infractions. Walmart had no immediate
comment then.
Write to Clarence Leong at clarence.leong@wsj.com and Justina
Lee at justina.lee@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 14, 2022 06:58 ET (11:58 GMT)
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