It is an unfair or deceptive act or practice and a violation of this part:

(a) For anyone to use an unfounded or groundless legal threat, a physical threat, intimidation, or a public false accusation in response to a consumer review that is made with the knowledge that the accusation was false or made with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity, in an attempt to:

(1) Prevent a review or any portion thereof from being written or created, or

(2) Cause a review or any portion thereof to be removed, whether or not that review or a portion thereof is replaced with other content, or

(b) For a business to materially misrepresent, expressly or by implication, that the consumer reviews of one or more of the products or services it sells displayed in a portion of its website or platform dedicated in whole or in part to receiving and displaying consumer reviews represent most or all the reviews submitted to the website or platform when reviews are being suppressed (i.e., not displayable) based upon their ratings or their negative sentiment. For purposes of this paragraph, a review is not considered suppressed based upon rating or negative sentiment if the suppression occurs based on criteria for withholding reviews that are applied equally to all reviews submitted without regard to sentiment, such as when:

(1) The review contains:

(i) Trade secrets or privileged or confidential commercial or financial information,

(ii) Defamatory, harassing, abusive, obscene, vulgar, or sexually explicit content,

(iii) The personal information or likeness of another individual,

(iv) Content that is discriminatory with respect to race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or another intrinsic characteristic, or

(v) Content that is clearly false or misleading;

(2) The seller reasonably believes the review is fake; or

(3) The review is wholly unrelated to the products or services offered by or available at the website or platform.