Amp Me sold a 'free' app and bought its reviews — Canada priced it at $1.5M

Amp Me's pitch was a Montreal app that turns phones into one loudspeaker: sync your devices and play music together. To sell it, the company marketed the app outside Quebec — in social media text and video — as completely free. It was not free; it was a limited free trial feeding a paid product. The word did the selling, and the word was false.

The Bureau's investigation also found that from 2019 to 2022 Amp Me bought positive reviews from third parties. The purchases created a false or misleading impression of the app and influenced its rating and ranking on the U.S. Apple App Store. On 5 December 2023 Amp Me signed a consent agreement: a $1.5 million penalty, of which $310,000 plus $40,000 in costs — $350,000 in all — was payable, the balance suspended for limited ability to pay, plus a corporate compliance program.

The case made reviews an advertising surface in Canadian law: a bought star rating is a claim to consumers, and the ranking it purchases is part of the deception. Commissioner Matthew Boswell put the standard plainly — Canadians must be able to trust online prices and reviews to make purchasing decisions, and the Bureau does not tolerate businesses that mislead them.