We’re happy to see the Federal Trade Commission’s move to bring more accountability to online consumer reviews. The FTC Endorsement Guides will bring some accountability to bloggers and anonymous reviews that run the gamut from angry and perhaps unfair rants, to undisclosed paid placements for or against certain establishments or products.

WNWY in New York talked about fake online ratings and reviews last night on the evening news, and the FTC regulations were discussed recently in a New York Times article as well.

Angie’s List is interested in this issue because there’s nothing more important to us than providing consumers with reliable information about the services they need. Since we started 14 years ago, we’ve worked hard to provide fair consumer reviews and we’ve invested a lot in people and technology to help us with this. We don’t allow anonymous reviews, and we don’t think anyone should rely on them. People who criticize or praise performance of any service professional or product should be willing to stand behind their words.