[Home](/)/[Resources](/resources)/Consumer Review Fairness Act United StatesFTCReviews # Consumer Review Fairness Act (CRFA): What Hardware Companies Can and Cannot Do with Customer Reviews The Consumer Review Fairness Act (15 USC § 45b) makes non-disparagement clauses in standard consumer contracts void by statute — not voidable, void. If your warranty registration, terms of service, or product packaging contains language restricting customers from posting reviews, that provision is legally unenforceable regardless of whether the customer agreed to it. The FTC enforces the CRFA under Section 5 authority, and California adds its own $2,500 per-clause statutory damages exposure under Civil Code § 1670.8. Copy Link[Share on WhatsApp](https://wa.me/?text=https%3A%2F%2Fkrono-labs.com%2Fguides%2Fus-consumer-review-fairness-act) At a glance Statute enacted December 2016 Enforcement agency FTC (15 USC § 45) Prohibited clause type Non-disparagement in form contracts California state analog Civil Code § 1670.8 ## CRFA key concepts for hardware companies ### What the CRFA Prohibits: Void Provisions by Statute The Consumer Review Fairness Act (15 USC § 45b, enacted December 2016) makes void any provision in a form contract that: prohibits or restricts a consumer from posting a review of the company's goods, services, or conduct; imposes a penalty or fee for posting a review; or requires the consumer to relinquish or transfer intellectual property rights in a written, verbal, or pictorial review. Void means automatically unenforceable — not voidable, but void. A company cannot even attempt to enforce such a clause without risking FTC enforcement. ### What Is a 'Form Contract' Under the CRFA The CRFA defines a covered contract as one that is offered on a standardized basis to an individual consumer on a take-it-or-leave-it basis for the sale or lease of goods or services primarily for personal, family, or household purposes. This is intentionally broad. Product warranty registration forms, standard terms of service, product packaging inserts containing embedded license or terms agreements, checkout-flow click-wrap agreements, and standard app terms of service all qualify. The CRFA does not require that the consumer have read or signed anything in particular — pre-checked boxes and hyperlinked terms count. ### Permitted Restrictions: What Companies Can Still Require The CRFA carves out four categories of content that businesses can still prohibit in reviews: (1) confidential or proprietary information about the business; (2) trade secrets; (3) information that is unlawful to post (defamatory per se, for example); and (4) content that contains private information about a person (medical records, financial account numbers, etc.). Critically, requiring reviews to be truthful and non-defamatory is permitted. What companies cannot do is use those carve-outs as a backdoor to chill all negative reviews by broadly characterizing any critical review as 'defamatory.' ### FTC Enforcement Authority and Actions The FTC enforces the CRFA under its Section 5 authority (15 USC § 45) to prohibit unfair or deceptive acts or practices. The FTC can seek civil penalties, injunctions, and consumer redress. Following the CRFA's passage, the FTC sent warning letters to companies with non-disparagement clauses in their consumer contracts and has used the Act as a basis for demanding remediation in broader investigations. Companies that continue using void provisions after FTC notice face substantially higher penalty exposure as knowing violations. ### California Civil Code § 1670.8: State-Level Parallel California enacted its own non-disparagement clause prohibition at Civil Code § 1670.8, which predates the CRFA (effective 2015) and provides for statutory damages of $2,500 for each non-disparagement clause a consumer encounters and $10,000 for intentional violations. California's statute is broader in some respects — it covers business-to-consumer contracts regardless of whether the primary use is personal, family, or household. Hardware companies selling in California must comply with both the CRFA and § 1670.8, and should audit their contracts for California exposure separately. ### Review Gating and Positive-Review Incentives Two adjacent practices create significant legal risk. Review gating — sending a satisfaction survey and directing only satisfied customers to leave a public review — is considered potentially deceptive by the FTC because it creates a misleading impression that public reviews represent all customer experiences. Separately, offering discounts, free products, or other incentives for leaving reviews without requiring disclosure of the relationship violates FTC 16 CFR Part 255 (the endorsement guides) and the FTC's 2024 fake review rule at 16 CFR Part 465. Amazon's own Community Guidelines also prohibit incentivized reviews, and violations there risk marketplace suspension. ## CRFA compliance audit and remediation process 01 Audit every consumer-facing standard contract, terms of service, warranty registration form, product packaging insert, app terms, and checkout flow for any clause that restricts, penalizes, or limits the consumer's ability to post a public review of your products or company. 02 Remove or redraft all void provisions immediately. Do not attempt to narrow the prohibition to 'false reviews only' in a way that could be read as chilling truthful negative reviews — this fails the CRFA's plain text. If you want to address defamatory reviews, use the standard defamation carve-out with specific and narrow language. 03 Audit your warranty registration forms separately. Many hardware companies include embedded terms in registration flows that contain non-disparagement language added years ago by legal templates. These must be removed before the CRFA exposure accumulates with each registration. 04 Review your product packaging for any printed terms. Printed non-disparagement clauses on packaging are form contracts under the CRFA even if no consumer signs them. The inclusion of the clause is sufficient for violation. 05 Ensure your customer service scripts and escalation procedures do not instruct agents to threaten legal action against consumers for leaving negative reviews. A template response threatening legal action for a truthful negative review is an unfair or deceptive practice under FTC Act § 5 independent of the CRFA. 06 If you offer review incentives (discounts, samples, extended warranties in exchange for reviews), require disclosure of the material connection in every review. Provide standard disclosure language to the reviewer. Track all incentivized reviews to ensure disclosure compliance under 16 CFR Part 255 and the 2024 fake review rule. 07 Eliminate review gating practices. Send post-purchase surveys to all customers uniformly and direct all customers to public review platforms — not only those who respond positively. If your CRM workflow routes only happy customers to Amazon or Google reviews, restructure it. 08 Brief your customer support, legal, and marketing teams on what they can and cannot say in response to negative online reviews. A company response that threatens a reviewer or implies legal consequences for the review is independently actionable. 09 Monitor your Amazon and other retailer review policies. Amazon's Seller Code of Conduct prohibits sellers from attempting to manipulate reviews, and Amazon actively removes reviews and suspends selling privileges when manipulation is detected. The CRFA violation and the marketplace violation can occur simultaneously. ## Frequently asked questions ### Can a manufacturer void a warranty if a customer posts a negative review? No. This is precisely the type of provision the CRFA was enacted to prohibit. A warranty term stating that coverage is voided if the customer posts a disparaging review is a provision that 'imposes a penalty' for reviewing the company's goods under 15 USC § 45b(b)(1)(B). The provision is void by statute, meaning it cannot be enforced regardless of whether the customer agreed to it. Beyond the CRFA, attempting to void a warranty as retaliation for a review would likely constitute an unfair or deceptive act or practice under FTC Act § 5 independently, and in some states would violate implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing under UCC Article 2. ### What is review gating and why is it problematic? Review gating is the practice of sending a satisfaction survey to all customers but directing only those who respond positively to a public review platform, while asking dissatisfied customers to contact customer service privately instead. The FTC considers this deceptive because it creates an impression that public reviews represent the full distribution of customer experience when they actually represent a selected, more favorable subset. The practice also likely violates the FTC's 2024 fake review rule (16 CFR Part 465) which prohibits disseminating consumer reviews in a way that misrepresents the reviews or the reviewer. Amazon's Community Guidelines explicitly prohibit review gating and will suspend seller accounts for the practice. ### Does the CRFA apply to B2B reviews? Generally no. The CRFA covers form contracts for goods or services purchased primarily for personal, family, or household purposes. Business-to-business contracts are outside the CRFA's scope because the goods are not purchased for personal or household purposes. However, the line is not always clean — a small business owner purchasing hardware for a side business run from their home occupies a gray area. California Civil Code § 1670.8 may apply more broadly. For any company that sells both consumer and commercial channels through the same standard contract (a single set of online T&Cs, for instance), CRFA compliance is required because some buyers purchasing under those terms will be consumers. The conservative approach is to remove non-disparagement clauses from all standard contracts regardless of the intended buyer. ### Can companies sue customers for negative reviews? Companies can sue for demonstrably false statements of fact that are defamatory — the First Amendment does not protect defamation. What companies cannot do is use the threat of litigation to chill truthful negative reviews, which is precisely what non-disparagement clauses in form contracts accomplish. A demand letter threatening to enforce a CRFA-void non-disparagement clause is itself potentially an unfair or deceptive practice. Additionally, many states have enacted anti-SLAPP statutes (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) that allow defendants to dismiss meritless suits targeting protected speech and recover attorney's fees. California's anti-SLAPP statute (CCP § 425.16) is among the strongest in the country and applies to reviews posted about matters of public concern, including product quality. **Disclaimer:** Educational resource only. Regulatory requirements change. Consult a licensed US attorney or compliance specialist before making decisions. [ Map your product, free Every standard, document, and test that applies — free, no account required. 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