On August 1, 2017, the Regional Court of Cologne ruled that an “Ausgezeichnet.org” rating seal for online stores misleads consumers and is therefore inadmissible (Ref.: 33 O 159/16).
The seal represents an overall view and summary of various reviews on sales platforms, which are not sufficiently marked as such.
The “ausgezeichnet.org” rating seal is misleading
With this decision, the Regional Court of Cologne ruled in favor of an online store for printer accessories that was defending itself against the use of the “ausgezeichnet.org” rating seal in a competing store.
The rating seal for the online store showed a graphic with the words: “(…) VERY GOOD – 4.94/5.00 – 31,819 ratings – from several portals”. However, of the approximately 32,000 reviews, only 27 came from buyers from the online store itself. The store received all other ratings on other sales platforms such as eBay.
In the opinion of the Cologne Regional Court, however, such an imprecise indication of “ausgezeichnet.org” in the rating seal misleads the customer of the online store. This is because it is not directly apparent to the customer that in some cases only a fraction of the reviews actually relate to the specific online store and that all other reviews come from other online stores.
Addition “from several portals” is insufficient and misleading
Furthermore, the court makes it clear that the addition “from several portals” is understood by the customer to mean that the reviews have been compiled from various review portals. The idea that the statement merely refers to different reviews on different online stores is rather remote.
Merging of valuations not permitted
Also, “ausgezeichnet.org” could not simply transfer different ratings from different sales portals to one website. After all, the terms and conditions of sale differ from store to store. The stores differ considerably, especially in terms and conditions.
The various ratings can therefore not simply be added together. If a rating seal nevertheless performs such an aggregation, it must at least provide an indication that clearly states this.