In alignment with updated guidance from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), PowerReviews has implemented updates to our Moderation policy, including changes to certain moderation observations and publication rules for US-based accounts. These updates became effective on May 13th, 2025, and apply to all new content submitted from that date forward. Content collected prior to the implementation date is not subject to these changes.
What changed?
Change #1: The observation for “Irrelevant” is being split into 3 different observations. Note, “Observations” are codes applied to content during moderation, which can affect whether or not that piece of content gets published to the display or syndicated to retailers. See Moderation Policy and Authenticity Policy for full definitions.
- (NEW) Shipping & Fulfillment [SF] - review primarily focuses on shipping and fulfillment experience (including positive, neutral, and negative sentiment). For US accounts, this observation will result in content being published to your native site, but will not be syndicated to retail partners.
- (NEW) Service [SER] - review primarily focuses on customer service experience (including positive, neutral, and negative sentiment). For US accounts, this observation will result in content being published to your native site, but will not be syndicated to retail partners.
- (CHANGE) Irrelevant [NR] - Reviews primarily discussing Shipping or Service are no longer part of the definition of Irrelevant content. The Irrelevant observation will now only be applied if the content contains gibberish, random characters, nonsensical or completely off topic
Change #2: For Merchant Groups that use an en_US locale, SF and SER observations will be approved for publication. Reviews tagged as Irrelevant will continue to remain Unpublished. Below is a table showing the default publication statuses for these observations in different regions. Content is moderated according to the same policy globally.
| Observation | Publishable? (US) | Publishable? (Non-US) | Syndicated? (All) |
| Shipping & Fulfillment | Yes | No | No |
| Service | Yes | No | No |
| Irrelevant | No | No | No |
Action to be taken (US Accounts only):
- While the new FTC proposal is now closed for public comment, we do recommend you stay up to date with the FTC guides on endorsements, influencers, and reviews here.
- If after review, you have decided to opt OUT of the publication changes, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.
Are you a Custom Moderation Client? Your CSM will reach out proactively to go through options and impact with you.