The BGH recently ruled on the liability of an online retailer for reviews of its product offered on Amazon and showed itself to be retailer-friendly. The special feature of Amazon reviews is that Amazon assigns them to the product listed under the corresponding ASIN without closer examination. As a result, all customer reviews for an item that have been submitted for this product – which may be offered by several sellers – are displayed. The court noted that the retailer itself had neither actively advertised with the reviews or initiated them, nor had it adopted the customer reviews as its own by assuming responsibility for their content. Rather, customer reviews were marked as such, were separate from the online retailer’s offering on Amazon and were not attributed to the retailer’s sphere by users. Accordingly, he did not have to be liable for this (BGH, judgment of February 20, 2020, Ref.: I ZR 193/18).
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