REG - Trustpilot Group PLC - Trustpilot rejects categorically false allegations

TrustpilotAnnouncement

Yesterday 16:45

For best results when printing this announcement, please click on link below:
https://newsfile.refinitiv.com/getnewsfile/v1/story?guid=urn:newsml:reuters.com:20251205:nRSE5235Ka&default-theme=true

RNS Number : 5235K  Trustpilot Group PLC  05 December 2025

Trustpilot rejects categorically false allegations by Grizzly Research

The Board of Trustpilot rejects categorically the allegations made in the
report published by Grizzly Research. Their report contains factual
inaccuracies and false claims, which were intended to adversely impact the
company's share price. Trustpilot was not contacted for comment.

The report is built on a basic misunderstanding of Trustpilot's business
model. It ignores publicly available information about our scale, policies,
data, and enforcement, and makes a series of demonstrably false accusations,
including:

●     It is false to claim that Trustpilot creates unsolicited review
profiles to sell subscriptions. Over 97% of businesses on the platform do not
pay for a subscription. Consumers and businesses create profiles for free. 70%
of reviews on free profiles are 5 stars.

●     It is false to claim that fake reviews are managed differently for
paying vs free businesses. All businesses - whether free or paid - must comply
with the same Guidelines
(https://corporate.trustpilot.com/legal/for-businesses/guidelines-for-businesses/may-2025)
and are held to the same moderation principles.

●     It is false to claim that we have traded the integrity of reviews
for revenue. We have c.200 people focused on ensuring trust and integrity
across our platform and have removed 6.7m reviews from the platform so far
this year. We have successfully brought lawsuits against bad actor businesses
and review sellers.

We are considering all appropriate options in response to demonstrably false
statements. Below we set out the facts about our business model and content
moderation.

Trustpilot exists to help consumers make the right choice and businesses to
build trust, grow and improve

 

Trustpilot operates a freemium business model where businesses have the choice
whether to use Trustpilot for free or to subscribe. Businesses which subscribe
are buying access to brand rights and tools that automate review collection
and provide insights into customer feedback. There are 1.3 million businesses
that have claimed their profile on the platform of which 3.1% pay for
additional features. These features and our pricing plans can be found here
(https://uk.business.trustpilot.com/pricing) .

 

The platform is global, open and hosts over 350 million reviews. This means
consumers have the freedom to share their genuine experiences as and when they
choose, and businesses can invite consumers to leave feedback, and respond at
any time. Information about how Trustpilot works is in the public domain
(https://corporate.trustpilot.com/trust/how-trustpilot-works) , and was not
referred to in their report.

Any business has the right to claim its own Trustpilot profile for free. This
enables them to receive and reply to all reviews. We transparently disclose
data on all businesses reviews and whether they are a paying customer through
the "How this company uses Trustpilot" link on every profile page.

Trustpilot does not create unsolicited review profiles in order to sell
subscriptions. Profiles are created by consumers when they search for or want
to share feedback about a business, or can be created by businesses who want
to collect feedback.

Our guidelines and fraud detection technologies apply equally to paying and
non paying businesses. The TrustScore calculation is identical for all
customers. It is active engagement by businesses inviting and responding to
reviews, rather than whether they are a paying customer, which impacts the
TrustScore. The average TrustScore for a paying customer is 4.37 and for a
free business that is actively engaging with the platform is 4.26.

Trustpilot is vigilant about moderation and is constantly developing new
detection models

Trustpilot recognises that all review platforms operating at our scale attract
bad actors. We take content moderation extremely seriously and are constantly
evolving our processes to address bad actors. We have a team of c.200 people
focused on ensuring trust and integrity across our platform. Their report
suggests that we have at most 6 people, which is clearly inaccurate. Over the
last 2 years, we've increased our investment in this process by almost 50%,
putting millions of dollars into our people and technology, and we will
continue to do so.

Our commercial team is entirely separate from our Trust function and is not
able to influence the outcome of content moderation. All teams at Trustpilot,
including our commercial team, undertake regular training around the
importance of acting with integrity, and in accordance with our Trust
principles.   (https://corporate.trustpilot.com/trust)

All businesses - whether free or paid - must comply with the same Guidelines
(https://corporate.trustpilot.com/legal/for-businesses/guidelines-for-businesses/may-2025)
. The same moderation standards apply and responding to and reporting reviews
is free for all businesses.

Our Guidelines for Reviewers
(https://corporate.trustpilot.com/legal/for-reviewers/guidelines-for-reviewers/may-2025)
are explicit: users are welcome to use profile pictures but they are
expressly prohibited from impersonating somebody else. We provide the option
for reviewers to securely verify their ID
(https://help.trustpilot.com/s/article/Verify-your-identity-with-photo-ID?language=en_US)
to help build trust and credibility with our community. We have a
whistleblower form available to all users to report violating imagery, and
when we have evidence of this we will act as set out in our Action We Take
policy
(https://corporate.trustpilot.com/legal/for-everyone/action-we-take/mar-2024)
. We are constantly considering new technologies to detect this.

How the process works in practice

When a review is submitted to the platform it is analysed by our automated
detection models. These don't just look at the substance of the review, but at
hundreds of metadata points that are effectively a digital fingerprint of the
reviewer. We are constantly iterating our models to detect new and evolving
patterns.

As we set out in our 2025 Trust Report
(https://corporate.trustpilot.com/trust/trust-report-2025) , in the last year
we introduced automated guideline detection software. This technology has
enabled us to more accurately detect and remove content which violates our
guidelines. Since its phased introduction in August 2024 this software has
been identifying and removing content which contains nonsense. When we
introduce new models we prioritise the most recent reviews first, and then we
backfilter over time.

We catch 90% of reviews we remove before they reach the platform. Technology
is not perfect and continues to evolve, but we are dedicated to constantly
improving. Any business or consumer can flag reviews that breach our
guidelines and they can also submit a whistleblower report. This is then
investigated by our Trust team.

Where we discover breaches of our guidelines, we take action in line with our
Action We Take policy. We are transparent about the action we take and where
necessary and appropriate we will apply alerts and warnings
(https://help.trustpilot.com/s/article/Trustpilot-Consumer-Warnings-and-Alerts?language=en_US)
to business profiles.  Each year we remove millions of reviews and restrict
large numbers of accounts that breach our guidelines and we have continued to
scale up enforcement this year. Given the scale of the platform, even with our
best efforts, things will get through which is why we enable people to flag
reviews they believe are suspicious.

So far in 2025 we have:

●     Removed 6.7m reviews (+68%% YoY)

●     Issued 23,932 warnings (+35%% YoY)

●     Issued 6,128 formal notices (+22% YoY)

●     Removed 6,500 businesses (+60% YoY)

●     Implemented 9,694 consumer warnings (+18%)

●     Implemented 15,262 consumer alerts (+55% YoY)

In 2025 to date reviews removed for paying and free business profiles were as
follows:

●     Free business profiles (by star rating): 14 per cent were
negative, 85 per cent were positive and 1 per cent were neutral.

●     Paid business profiles (by star rating): 14 per cent were
negative, 84 per cent were positive and 2 per cent were neutral.

We are an open platform and recognise that consumers may wish to leave
feedback along different aspects of their journey. Recognising this, our
review system is designed so that only a reviewer's most recent review for a
business counts towards the TrustScore. The report falsely claims that
multiple reviews from the same user contribute to the score.

 

Trustpilot has a strong record of improving regulation and protection for
consumers

 

Review manipulation of any kind is illegal. There has been significant new
legislation enacted to support this in the last 18 months, both in the US
under the FTC's new rule and in the UK with the introduction of the DMCCA -
Trustpilot has played an important role in shaping these new laws.

Trustpilot expressly bans review gating, also known as cherry-picking. Our
guidelines prohibit businesses from only inviting happy customers, from
incentivising reviews, as well as from using any kind of fake reviews. In line
with our Action We Take policy so far this year we have taken action against
over 330 paying businesses, terminating the paid subscriptions of 39, for
review gating or fake reviews.

New information will often surface about a business after reviews have been
written. We continually assess and analyse profiles and work with regulators,
law enforcement and industry bodies to drive industry standards and
collaborate in our actions against bad actors. The ways in which users and bad
actors engage with platforms like Trustpilot is constantly evolving. We have a
number of product development plans in the pipeline for 2026, including
initiatives to reduce the risk of scam businesses.

The existence of black markets in fake reviews is not unique to Trustpilot and
is one we are constantly fighting to reduce. Buying or selling fake reviews is
illegal. When we identify that reviews have been purchased, we remove the
reviews, sanction the business and, where they are a paying customer,
terminate the relationship. We also report sellers and buyers to regulators or
enforcement bodies. We have successfully brought lawsuits against bad actor
businesses and review sellers and engage with the platforms the review sellers
are advertising through. These efforts helped to highlight and focus the need
on appropriate legislation.

 

We categorically refute the allegations in their report and have highlighted
here some of the inaccuracies we have found.

 

 

 

Enquiries

 Trustpilot Group plc                        Headland Consultancy

 Louise Bryant, Head of Investor Relations   Stephen Malthouse / Rob Walker /

Charlie Pepper
 investor.relations@trustpilot.com

                                           trustpilot@headlandconsultancy.com
 +44 (0) 7813 210 809

                                           Tel: +44 (0) 20 3805 4822

 

Notes

Trustpilot exists to help consumers make the right choices, and to help
businesses build trust, grow and improve. To protect the integrity of our
platform there are clear rules and guidelines for all users to follow. These
are set out in our Terms of Use for Businesses
(https://corporate.trustpilot.com/legal/for-businesses/terms-of-use-and-sale-for-businesses/nov-2025)
and Consumers
(https://corporate.trustpilot.com/legal/for-reviewers/terms-of-use-for-consumers/feb-2025)
 and Guidelines for Businesses
(https://corporate.trustpilot.com/legal/for-businesses/guidelines-for-businesses/may-2025)
and Reviewers
(https://corporate.trustpilot.com/legal/for-reviewers/guidelines-for-reviewers/may-2025)
. Our Guidelines and Terms are reinforced by our Action We Take
(https://corporate.trustpilot.com/legal/for-everyone/action-we-take/mar-2024)
policy.

All data provided in this report is for the period 1 January - 30 November
2025.

 

This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact
rns@lseg.com (mailto:rns@lseg.com)
 or visit
www.rns.com (http://www.rns.com/)
.

RNS may use your IP address to confirm compliance with the terms and conditions, to analyse how you engage with the information contained in this communication, and to share such analysis on an anonymised basis with others as part of our commercial services. For further information about how RNS and the London Stock Exchange use the personal data you provide us, please see our
Privacy Policy (https://www.lseg.com/privacy-and-cookie-policy)
.   END  STRTABFTMTTMBFA



            Copyright 2019 Regulatory News Service, all rights reserved