Businesses offering subscriptions will be required to make clear exactly what consumers are signing up for and allow them to cancel easily.
The government also said that “consumer catfishes” responsible for fake online reviews would be targeted with rules making it automatically illegal to pay someone to write or host a fake review. Fake reviews are a serious problem for large online marketplaces such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google on which third-party sellers and businesses compete, with dishonest incentives being widely offered for five-star reviews in some areas.
Regulators will also be helped to stamp out other dodgy tactics used to manipulate people browsing for goods and services online. These include tactics that manipulate consumers into spending more than they wanted to, and negative nudges such as items receiving a boost in rankings on a platform while hiding the fact that it is sponsored.
The law will be altered such that prepayment schemes...