Google pledged to crack down on fake online reviews with tougher punishments for rogue reviewers and businesses that try to profit from them, British regulators said Friday following an investigation.

This includes deactivating the ability to add new reviews for businesses found to be using fake reviews, and deleting all existing reviews for at least six months if they repeated

Businesses which boost their star ratings will have warnings attached to them - fake reviewers will be banned.

The watchdog started a formal investigation into Amazon and Alphabet's Google in 2021 over concerns they were not doing enough to combat fake reviews on their sites, which are use

Britain's competition regulator said on Friday it had secured important changes from Google to tackle fake reviews, including to sanction UK businesses that have boosted their star ratings with fake or misleading reviews.

Google has committed to cracking down on fake reviews by improving fraud detection and punishing offenders. Businesses using shady tactics will lose the ability to submit reviews or have existing ones wiped for at least six months.