One of the recent events, affecting the reputation of Trustpilot, was the reported neglect of the complaints regarding the company’s fake reviews. Previously, the problem was investigated by allAgents, which is a platform for distributing information regarding property (Da Silva, 2022). However, the involved business failed to comply with their requirements and eliminate the described risks, and the actions of CEO were unacceptable for future cooperation.
The questionable ethics behind this conflict in the absence of apparent legal violations were sufficient for claiming the company’s disregard for corporate social responsibility. The proper course of action would be resolving the issue in a timely manner and publishing the corresponding statements in free access. Since these solutions were not introduced by CEO Peter Muhlmann, it is no wonder that allAgents decided to leave the partnership to maintain its own reputation (Da Silva, 2022). In this case, the stakeholders were presented by the platform and target customers, who were misled by the fake reviews, whereas the former also suffered from discontent of other participants (Da Silva, 2022). The global implications of this situations are, therefore, the harm to trust to other enterprises, collaborating with allAgents, which means that the principles of one’s benefits as per utilitarianism were applied. To address the challenge, I would take promptly measures right after the emergence of the problem to avoid complications and reported about the progress to allAgents.
In conclusion, the issue of unethical decisions made by Trustpilot, posting fake reviews, led to tragic consequences. They adversely affected both the company and other businesses as well as the platform, which means financial losses for all parties. From this perspective, the damage caused by one participant was disproportionally greater than the benefits it received, which means that this outcome should have been prevented earlier.
Reference
Da Silva, M. (2022). AllAgents calls for Trustpilot CEO to resign over alleged ‘fake reviews scandal.’ Property Industry Eye. Web.