Mozilla announced today that it has acquired Fakespot, a start-up that offers a website and browser extension that helps users identify fake or untrustworthy reviews. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Fakespot’s offerings can be used to spot fake reviews posted on various online marketplaces, including Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and more.
Founded in 2016, New York-based Fakespot uses an AI and machine learning system to detect patterns and similarities between reviews to flag the most likely misleading reviews. Fakespot provides a rating or rating for the product’s reviews to help consumers make more informed decisions when making a purchase. The goal behind the company’s website and browser extension is to give users the ability to quickly see where misleading reviews artificially inflate a product’s search engine rankings.
“Fakespot will continue to work across all major web browsers and mobile devices, and the Mozilla team will invest in further improving the Fakespot experience for its many, dedicated users,” said Mozilla Chief Product Officer Steve Teixeira in a blog post. “There will also be future Fakespot integrations that are unique to Firefox. The addition of Fakespot capabilities will leave Firefox customers best equipped to cut through misleading reviews and shop with the confidence that they know what they are buying is high quality and authentic.”
Mozilla says that with Fakespot, Firefox users will have access to a reliable shopping tool that will help improve the ecommerce experience. The company says it will introduce Fakespot functionality to Firefox over time.
While AI and machine learning have long been used to spot fake reviews, the task is likely to become more difficult with the introduction of improved and commercially available AI tools. For example, recent reports indicate that people are using AI chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, to write reviews for products on Amazon. These reviews allegedly written by ChatGPT could be the next iteration of scam and fake reviews.
Today’s announcement comes a few weeks after Mozilla launched an AI-focused startup called Mozilla.ai. The newly forged company’s mission isn’t to build just any AI — it’s mission is to build AI that is open source and “trustworthy,” said Mark Surman, Mozilla’s executive president and head of Mozilla.ai.