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Are Your Testimonials and Reviews Legal? What Australian Businesses Need to Know
- Nikolina Milošević
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
Testimonials and online reviews are some of the most persuasive advertising tools available to a small business, and also one of the areas the ACCC has been actively sweeping for compliance. If your marketing leans on customer reviews, influencer content, or “as seen” style endorsements, this is worth checking properly, and if you’d like a second set of eyes on it, you can book a Strategy & Advice Consult at any time.
The scale of the problem.
In December 2023, the ACCC published the results of an internet sweep of 118 social media influencers and 137 businesses. Eighty-one percent of the influencers reviewed were making posts that raised concerns under the Australian Consumer Law. Thirty-seven percent of the businesses reviewed had engaged in conduct of concern around fake or misleading online reviews. The ACCC has flagged this as an ongoing enforcement priority, not a one-off exercise, and has signaled it will continue developing guidance for both platforms and businesses.
The core rules.
Testimonials and reviews are generally regulated the same way any other advertising claim is regulated, under sections 18 and 29 of the Australian Consumer Law. In plain terms, that means the following.
The review needs to be genuine.
Writing your own five-star review, asking staff or family to post reviews without disclosing the connection, or fabricating a testimonial from a customer who doesn’t exist is likely to be treated as a serious breach. This sounds obvious, but it remains one of the most common issues the ACCC finds.
Cherry-picking can be a problem.
Curating your best reviews for a highlight reel is normal marketing. Systematically hiding or deleting genuine negative reviews to manufacture a false overall impression of customer sentiment is likely to be viewed differently. There’s a real distinction between “showcasing the good stuff” and “suppressing the truth,” and the line generally sits at whether the overall impression a consumer takes away is accurate.
Paid or incentivised endorsements generally need to be disclosed.
If someone was paid, given a free product, or given any other benefit in exchange for a review or endorsement, that should be clearly disclosed, both by the endorser and by the business. A vague thank-you in the comments is unlikely to be sufficient. The AANA Code of Ethics requires a clear, upfront disclosure, such as #ad or #sponsored, placed where a consumer will actually see it before engaging with the content, not buried at the end of a long caption.
The endorser generally needs to have actually used the product.
Someone endorsing or reviewing something they haven’t tried is unlikely to be considered a genuine endorsement. If you’re working with influencers, this is worth making a condition of the arrangement in writing, rather than an assumption.
A common trap: review platform widgets.
Many businesses embed a widget from Google, Facebook, or a review platform that automatically pulls in reviews. If that widget is configured to only display four- and five-star reviews while hiding lower ratings, that configuration choice could itself create a misleading overall impression, even though every individual review shown is genuine.
Where this gets more serious: regulated health services
If your business is a regulated health practice under AHPRA, whether that’s medical, dental, nursing, or allied health, the rules go further than disclosure. Under AHPRA’s guidelines for advertising higher risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures, which came into effect on 2 September 2025, testimonials are prohibited for advertising these procedures. That includes testimonials on your own website, testimonials or reviews you showcase from third-party platforms like Google, testimonials in social media captions, and testimonials used by an influencer on your behalf. The same guidelines also prohibit advertising these procedures to people under 18.
This is a meaningful shift from the general ACL position. For most businesses, the question is “was this testimonial genuine and properly disclosed?” For AHPRA-regulated cosmetic procedures, the question is closer to “is a testimonial being used at all?”, because the answer generally needs to be no.
If your business sits anywhere near this space, even indirectly, it’s worth having this specifically checked rather than assumed. It’s a similar principle to running a compliant promotion generally, which we cover in Are Your Social Media Giveaways Legal?
The filtered review widget scenario
A fitness studio collects reviews through a third-party platform and displays a widget on its homepage showing a 4.9 star average from “200+ reviews.” In reality, the platform holds 340 reviews, and the widget is configured to exclude anything below four stars, which removes roughly 60 negative reviews from the average shown. Every review displayed is genuine and unedited. The likely problem is the overall impression: a visitor may reasonably believe the 4.9 average reflects all 340 reviews, when it reflects a filtered subset. That gap between the impression created and the underlying reality is generally what the ACL is aimed at.
Practical steps for most businesses
Keep records of consent for any customer review or testimonial you use in advertising, particularly if it’s a named or photographed customer.
Build a simple disclosure requirement into every influencer or ambassador agreement, in writing, before content goes live.
Check the configuration of any review widget or plugin on your website. If it’s set to filter out negative reviews entirely rather than simply ordering by relevance or recency, that setting is worth reconsidering.
Review your intake forms and website for any implied endorsement (logos, “as featured in,” industry affiliations) and make sure every one of them is current and accurate.
If you operate in a regulated health space, get specific advice on whether the AHPRA testimonial rules apply to your services before you rely on any customer review or influencer content in your marketing.
This blog is intended for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The content is based on Australian law and may not be current at the time you read it. Legal requirements may vary depending on your circumstances. Always seek independent legal advice tailored to your specific situation before acting on any information provided.
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