Fake product reviews: We know they're a thing. We don't like them. We wish they'd go away. But how to make that happen?

Well, the government has an idea: Charge companies six different kinds of holy guacamole if they use those fake reviews on their sites.

Fake reviews are ruining the web. But there's some new hope to fight them.

The Federal Trade Commission on Friday proposed new rules to take aim at businesses that buy, sell and manipulate online reviews.

Now, you might be thinking: How much could the FTC be proposing? What, $500 per day or something? Most companies would throw down that kind of money no problem.

But don't worry, the feds aren't kidding around this time.

If the rules are approved, they'll carry a big stick: a fine of up to $50,000 for each fake review, for each time a consumer sees it.

Fifty grand. For each review. Every time someone claps their eyeballs on it.

Given that "as many as 30 percent to 40 percent of online reviews are fabricated or otherwise not genuine," a $50,000 fine per review per view could be an absolute financial catastrophe.

Let's consider a small example. One of the most popular items on Amazon right now is a basic pair of entry-level Crocs:

It's got 534,000 reviews. Let's assume on the conservative side that 30 percent of those are fake. That's 160,200 bogus reviews.

As we can see, about 5,000 people purchased these Crocs in the past week. Let's assume, again conservatively, that even just 10% of buyers, or 500 customers, saw one of those reviews. With 160,200 reviews, it's not hard to imagine.

That's a $25,000,000 hit, for one week, for one product. And there are millions of products on Amazon, and millions of reviews. You can see this sort of thing adding up extremely quickly.

Fake reviews seem like a very daunting and difficult problem to solve. But yeeeesh.