Slashdot Mirror
Amazon.com Pierces Reviewer Anonymity
theodp writes "Amazon reviewers who anonymously posted book reviews or signed their critiques only as 'a reader from (fill in the city)' lost their anonymity this week when their identities were revealed on Amazon's site. Among those named were prominent authors who posted glowing five-star reviews of their own work. The weeklong glitch, which Amazon fixed after outed reviewers complained, provided a rare glimpse at how writers and readers are wielding the online reviews as a tool to promote or pan books when they think no one is watching. An Amazon spokeswoman told the NY Times the problem was 'an unfortunate error.'"
Serves 'em right. No such as anonymity on the 'net, right John Ashcroft?
Submitted reviews are also used by software companies to promote their products. Its pretty blatant usually.
You can't take the sky from me...
"theodp" is probably the NY Times journalist who wrote this article about astroturfing-- astroturfing his article here on slashdot. ;)
Slashdot never suffers a glitch when it comes to Anonymous Cowards like me.
Glowing reviews posted by the author of the book perverts the system. I would welcome such a useful and eye-opening feature.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
An INSIGHTFUL review, totally correct!! Mod +1, Informative.
- A reader from Chapel Hill, NC
If Amazon would keep that "mistake", I'd be tempted to pay for it. It seems like the people (in the article) that confessed to writing good reviews in bad faith did so to "rebut" bad reviews. If the original reviews weren't anonymous, the authors wouldn't have had to use an underhanded tactic.
-Maher-
Hey, there's nothing wrong shameless self promotion. How else can an author get people to read his cappy books?
On an unrelated note, I will now mod this post as +2, 100% Insightful.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
...nasty reviews made by rivals should be revealable as well. The one author interviewed said that he did it to couteract rivals who he felt were trashing his book.
What to do, what to do...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Seriously, I'm sick and tired of every major website requiring me to either a.) register for an account or, b.) fill out all of my personal information, before I can actually take advantage of the website's features.
Yeah, yeah, yeah..I know: marketing. But, come on. Requiring an e-mail address (with an opt-out radio button) is fine; do they really need all the other crap?
Ugh.
Chicks dig my good /. karma.
For those who have no newborns to sacrifice: Google link
I've actually written a couple of reviews myself, under my Internet name since I've only done a few. One of the authors actually published the review, so I think it is a neat way to get your name out in your industry if you really want to, especially since the books I reviewed dealt with my "real" job. Only he promoted my internet name. I also noticed that several authors I have met through work and know of them b/c of their books have openly wrote their own reviews on Amazon. Authors should not do that under a veil of secrecy. Just my two cents.
-Eric_Cartman_South_PaR#@J::: [MSSQL Error: Author "CmdrTaco", Action "PostAs: User 594330" not valid]
Although most take privacy as something only criminals doing dirty deeds would need... Here is an excerpt of a doc I wrote...
But heck who the hell am I kidding... Only you, yourself are to blame for giving your privacy away. Instead of only whining about not having privacy, don't some of you think it's time to wag the tail instead of keeping it tucked under your asses. Write to your lawmakers, start complaining. Simply crying about it does nothing, and companies will continue walking all over you.
MoFscker
Would they?
Now I feel cheated !
I got a Britney Spears CD based on 18 rave Amazon reviews and really tried to like it !
I feel vindicated !
Britney, I'm sorry, but you suck ! (or does she blow ?)
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Authors reviewing their books anonymously pretending to be a reader are just hurting themselves in the long run, esp. now, after their "anonymous" reviews have come to light. HOWEVER, I would definitely welcome posts from authors that post as theirselves and try to rebuttle defamatory comments/reviews. The whole purpose of the Amazon system is ACCURACY, not making sure every book scores 5/5.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
For pitys sake does anyone take 'user reviews' seriously??? Even if there not written by interested partys, the chances of them being written by someone clueful are scant and its more trouble than its worth to establish any track record for a given reviewer.
A system of meta moderation would add credibility to the system, if someone buys a product get them to evaluate a few reviews (if encouragement is needed pay them in 'loyalty points')
Why would anybody posting a review on Amazon be afraid of putting their name to it? It's not like there going to mod'ed as "troll" or "flamebait" or something....
Oops I thought I was posting this as AC...
The Author who said: "That anybody is allowed to come in and anonymously trash a book to me is absurd," Rechy told the Times. "How to strike back? Just go in and rebut every single one of them." is a fool.
It is the right of everyone in this country to have an opinion on the quality of work of art. There are always going to be people who enjoy something and people who will dislike it.
Get over it and start living in the real world.
Frankly I'm suspicious of anything or anyone who doesn't have a bad review of it. I'll buy from anyone who has a smidgeon of negative feedback on Ebay because I know that this is a real person who has had to (just as I have in my store) deal with some moron who cannot be pleased no matter how far you bend over backwards. I trust reviews that have a critic because many of thier points are valid ones. I may not agree that the point detracts from the work of art, but they are often valid points nonetheless.
You can't please everyone and these authors need to realize that, move on, and create to please themselves. If they do that there will always be someone to appriciate thier works.
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
. . . I tend to discount the reviews of those people who use real names and are labeled as "Top 100" or "Top 500" reviewers on Amazon. I tend to think that those people are major wannabes who wish that they were professional reviewers and therefore try too hard to be clever or literary. As a result, I find the reviews of such people to be among the most pretentious, overblown, non-credible reviews on Amazon. I no longer read them and skip past them to the anonymous reviews, which I find much honest and credible.
On either count..
What person doesn't promote his or her own work? That's just normal..
Also, we all know there is no true anonymity out there, so why be surprised with *yet another* 'glitch' publishes peoples identities...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Unfortunately, this type of screwup is a good thing. I've read way too many glowing, breathless reviews of absolute CRAP books, and was beginning to suspect the fix was in on these reviews...especially the reviews of those inane, fluffy 'financial-self-help' and marketing/management books.
I don't see what the big deal is. When I read amazon reviews of books - and even software, movies and regular products, I assume that the author/creator is reviewing their own item in the reviews. In fact, I assume that probably half of all the positive reviews for an item are from the author/creator, their publicist, editor, publisher, family, friends, etc.
That's before we even get to the issue of people who are specifically PAID to provide good reviews for all of a company's products site-wide on amazon. I only feel bad for regular users who were not posted anonymously for the last week. For authors and such in the business reviewing their own material... well... fuck them. I'm glad they were outed. Fucking cheats.
I'm surprised it took this long to discover...
"Insightful! Trillian's comments show a true understanding of the situation!" -- Some Anonymous Reviewer.
"Interesting! Why didn't I think of that?" -- Some Other Anonymous Reviewer.
"Ha ha ha! +1 Funny!" -- A Third Anonymous Reviewer. Definitely not the same as the previous two. Oops!
You asked if anyone takes user reviews seriously... I will on occasion. Both on Amazon etc, as well as sites such as New Egg (about a particular hardware product). I am generally interested to see what others think. It's just another sliver of information to potentially support my decision for or against a purchase. If there's either a solitary (or a handful of) glowing or panning review(s), that usually doesn't tell me much. But if there is a large pool of comments, it can be helpful. I can discard the high and the low, and still get a general view of what others think. And I'd like to think I can pick out the intelligent responses from the useless. "i licked this bok b/c it was gud" versus "This was a very well-written book (inserts reason here and supports it well)" in addition to drawing comparisons to other books and related subjects or offering further recommendations. And come on, did we not think before that some of these could be faked? I leave comments on sites sometimes with the hope that perhaps someone may find them helpful, and I often find the comments of others to be interesting and informative. It's not a perfect system but can indeed be used to support the other research I've done about the product prior to purchase.
When a similar error occured at Slashdot it was revealed that Cowboy Neal does in fact have 18,137 first posts with Goatse links.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Anonymous reviews have no credibility.
For example, there is a Dr. of Psychology here at my shool who is doing a study on the value of a rating system on sites like http://www.ratemyprofessor.com. I am not sure what her stance is on the topic, but most others at the school feel that it would be easy to sabotage her study.
Movie studio representatives have been caught giving reviews of their films under false identities. So is it surprising that authors would not stoop to the same level as those who produce movies?
There is no way to ensure that a College Professor cannot go to ratemyprofessor.com and give a review of him or herself (it is all anonymous). In the same way there is no way to prevent authors from giving anonymous reviews of their work to boost sales.
It is my not so humble opinion that openly anonymous forums lack credibility in this sense.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
I think it's unethical for authors to promote their own book in comments on amazon.com or some similar medium. Generally, I think reviews on amazon.com, Yahoo Movies, et al is unbiased. That the reviewer does not financially gain from the sale. When someone with bias tells me "this book is best book I've ever read" and I think they are unbiased, that's where the line of ethics is crossed.
In the same vein, it's why the media, if they report on something newsworthy happening that they might be tied to, they explain the tie to the company. For instance, if some news happens on say Sourceforge.net, Slashdot is ethically bound to say "Slashdot shares a parent company with Newsforge" so that we are told some biases might exist.
Flame on because I know I've probably missed some nuance...
Astroturfing
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
If I recall correctly, Sony got nailed for using a fake critic by the name of David Manning to doctor favorable reviews for their just released movies
It would not surprise me if authors were INDEED promoting their own works courtesy of public forums like amazon and the like.
Join the TWIT army now!
They do have a form of meta moderation where you can mark a review as helpful or not. When I see one tagged as "0 out of 23 readers found this helpful" I tend to take that review with a pinch of salt.
The NYT article names John Rechy and Dave Eggers as authors who have admitted posting anonymous reviews (Rechy of his own book, Eggers of a friend's book) Who else is trying this?
On another note, how should the knowledge of which authors are reviewing thier own books affect our purchases? Amazon gives a specific space for authors to review thier own work; posting anonymously about it strikes me as pretty dishonest. If I ever write my own novel and have it published, obviously I'll promote it, but anything I write about it will make it clear who the author is.
Twenties Retirement
I remember back in "the day" (1999ish) there were 3 options for reviewing a book: "I am a reader and I would like to comment," "I am the author of this book and I would like to comment" and "I am the publisher and I would like to comment."
Now, perhaps it was too hard to verify the true author comments or they simply had too many fake "I'm the author" reviews, but allowing the author to actually say his/her piece might be helpful/insightful (perhaps, even... "+5 insightful?")
I thought I clicked that post anonymous button! :P
Join the TWIT army now!
Use a moderation system.
Incidentally, the same problem hits ebay reputations. And it's also easy to fix.
There's a reason why no-one takes AC posts seriously on Slashdot.
- AC from (fill in City)
Of course, I'm sure some web sites aren't too careful about who gets their email list, but from my experience, the vast majority don't pass their list on to spammers, and the vast majority of addresses to spam comes from other sources.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
all 849 David Hasselhoff reviewers?
The majority of the /. crowd screams when they have to identify themsevles online - you want anonymity. Except when it's others - you want the reviewers to have to identify themselves. Nice double standard.
Repeat with me: technology can be used for good OR evil. The same applies to any innovation, even book reviews.
I read this book review on the internet, so it MUST be true.
Unfortunately, astroturf is common on Amazon. I've long known and tracked one author (Robert Stanek) who has written dozens of glowing reviews for his own incredibly-bad books, and adds reviews of other books "casually" mentioning himself in the company of Tolkien or Martin. He even Googles regularly for comments about himself elsewhere, which is how I found him on my own site once, trying to discredit me because I had written about his unethical behavior. I recently noticed another example, where an excellent book by Charles Perkins got several identically 40-column-formatted slag reviews in quick succession - probably an author or publisher of a competing book.
The problem is that it's too easy to establish multiple identities on Amazon. It would be trivial for me to create a hundred identities and use them to have a significant effect on the ratings of books I like or dislike. . .and you'd better believe I'd be less obvious about it than Stanek. Any claim Amazon might make about policing such abuse is a joke. Let's face it, folks: anywhere that online identities can be created basically out of thin air, fraud will be rampant. Yeah, that means Slashdot too. Pseudonymity is great, but anonymity is too often a cloak for abusers.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
Yeah, well anyone who posts anonymously is a coward who deserves to be outed anyway.
The same John Rechy who wrote "City of Night" and "The Sexual Outlaw" ?
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he was hustling reviews on Amazon the same way that his characters hustled and tricked their ways through his books.
Rechy's books disturbed me, which is a good quality in a book. How can I describe them for a Slashdot crowd? Start with William Gibson or Bruce Sterling; subtrace all the "cyber" part of "cyberpunk"; and replace it with gay sex. LOTS of gay sex.
Well that explain all those scathing reviews on Linux books from an anonymous reader in Redmond, Washington...
A far nastier problem I've experienced firsthand on Amazon.com is the tendency of authors to go through the reviews and demand all of the "bad" ones be removed. Amazon.com's policy is to remove negative reviews upon author or publisher request, even if the points stated by the critic were clearly logical, reasonable, and within the guidelines. I know quite a few other people that have had it happen to as well.
The really disturbing thing in the case of the book I was reviewing was that it advocated emotionally & physically abusing adults with disabilities. Regardless of who pointed it out, the author would have any review that wasn't sterling removed, so the book still has a great rating. Most of the ones remaining are either mindless "I know the author and she's really nice" comments that have nothing to do with the book itself, or testimonials from other wives/husbands that feel it's cool to throw things at, scream in the face of, and emotionally one's disabled partner into feeling deeply inferior. VERY disturbing.
Among the reasons I left a certain former employer (besides gross incompetence) was that they had me implement a review system on one of our sites, then the phb proceeded to enter 2-4 glowing reviews for everything in the database, and pick those as the ones that showed on the front page. As of the time I left, not a single review on the site was legitimate. On the plus side, I'm not the only one who didn't like the site, it's a specialized meta-search engine which is now blocked from using all the largest search engines in it's category. It didn't even pull results, it sent the traffic on to the originating sites, so you know they were doing something seriously wrong to get blocked. Actually, looking at it again for the first time in a while, it looks like they've got some real reviews now, since every search engine has a bunch of negative 'This site sucks' reviews :)
What this unfortunate incident really shows is that Amazon actually tracks everyone. Even anonymous postings are kept in their histories! This should be alarming to everyone out there. I wonder if Slashdot does this too? What if the anonymous postings on slashdot are not anymous at all? What if Slashdot records everyone's IP addresses? Workers posting stuff anonymously (to prevent them from being fired) might be hurt. Of course, I am speculating. Slashdot may not keep the IP addresses. But if Amazon can, anything is possible...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
When you see a book with reviews of 1,1,2 and then a bunch of 5s with flowery, glowing-yet-ambiguous praise, it's pretty obvious they're shills. That's why I've always made it a practice to prioritize the most realistic reviews by clicking "yes" to "Did you find this review helpful?"
Beyond this, if you're going to write a review of your own book, the least you can do is register anonymously. That's too funny.
Once thing that annoys me about Amazon reviews is that they'll clear the slate for subsequent editions. I spent more than a month compiling notes on some Oracle manuals that really exposed their horribly-documented publications, and then they came out with a new edition that was more of the same crap, but Amazon obsoleted the reviews. I know sometimes new editions are really "new" but most of the time they're not. If there are reviews of previous editions of a book, they should be prominently featured on the latest edition review page.
Slashcode can store the IP addresses of non-logged-in AC's. (I obviously have no idea if they do, or if so, how long this persists, but the code is there.) I'm not sure if logged-in AC's are tracked by account, though. (I'd sorta wish they were - sometimes I would like to see replies to AC posts.)
He also asked several other people to do the same thing, and I am aware of at least two who "reviewed" the book without reading it.
It's hard to deny that this behavior is deceptive, but how can you police it? Sure, you can prevent an author reviewing their own work, but how can you prevent that review being posted by proxy?
If I post as an AC, you know that I'm an AC, nothing more, nothing less.
When you read a review on Amazon.com, you are expecting an unbiased review. The person making a self-interested post is actively decieving you.
There is a difference between wishing to preserve your anonimity, and trying to pretend that you are something that you are not.
Sangloth
I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.
.. by its cover.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Didn't the story say that he was a reader from Chicago? If so, THIS is the review:
A reader's feast, October 19, 2003
Reviewer: A reader from Chicago, IL
This book is moving, hilarious, sad, laugh-aloud funny, touching, and very, very sexy--a feast. The characters are all memorable, Lyle the cowboy who never rode a horse; his Miss America mom--and the minor characters! A finicky female porn entrepreneur and her detested husband and their nasty director, Za-Z La Grande; a "poster" woman whose image is all over the city, "the sexy chicano." The names of the minor characters will knock you over--real names only slightly disguised. Also "Mr. Fielding," an eccentric gambler and the corrupt evangelists, who are vile and at the same time hilarious. Lyle, like Tom Jones, is in and out of unique situations--accidentally in a magician's show, at the playboy mansion "saving" Miss Universe," confronting an exploiter of Star Maps sellers, teenagers--(...) There are poigant moments, with Sister Matilda, gospel singer, and Clarita, the Mexican housekeeper. The song Amazing Grace recurs, and the ending is unforgettable, starting with an Academy Awards ceremony you won't forget.
And yes, funny joke there, but Amazon probably doesn't let you rate your own reviews (I could be wrong, though.)
blog & fiction: jd87
"...is only asking for objective criteria, such as plot, setting, and character info."
Information which is completely useless in determining whether I would actually enjoy reading the book.
Roger Ebert always says: "What's important is not what the movie is about; it's how it manages to be about it." I submit that this is even more true with fiction.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
On "A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius : A Memoir Based on a True Story", one the books mentioned in the article, we have Customers interested in this title may also be interested in: Genius Computer Products Mice, Keyboards, Trackballs Tablets... Is this a new slashdot effect?
Amazon should seperate their reviews into two groups - one with a proof-positive name and contact info, making the writer liable for slander or lible, and another for 'anonymous cowards.'
If you aren't confident enough to stand behind your words, your words have much less value.
How many of you ACs that posted in the MS Source Code Leak story
the other day with your reports of what's in the code you downloaded
got a bit nervous when you read this story today?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
In spite of this obvious attempt to mislead readers, Amazon chose to do nothing. That recommendation is still up there!
How is this any different to the 'blurb' normaly printed
on book jackets by the publishers?
In this case the authors are writing their own BS hype
online instead of bribing someone else to do it for them.
Its just a fairly typical cheesy marketing ploy.
The best way to judge a book is to check it out for yourself
in a bookstore. If you're hooked in the first few paragraphs
its probably going to be a good read.
Reviews, best to treat em with a bucket of salt.
siggy played guitar
Why would /. readers feel any outrage?
It happened to Amazon Canada so only like 5 people saw it.
-
Q: Why is Amazon doing any of this?
- A: To make a buck.
The "customer" reviews are just part of that purpose. For example, from my own experience I can assure you that Amazon does not want honest and negative reviews, because such reviews might discourage some people from buying the book. I've submitted a couple of such reviews, thoughtful pieces that covered both sides, but which ultimately came down on the negative side, and which were rejected with various doublespeak explanations. The REAL problem was that I made a persuasive case against buying those books.From their perspective, a totally bogus but glowing review is fine, just as long as it will sell more books.
Amazon claims an impartiality that is totally lacking in practice, but I say they are shooting themselves in the foot--or maybe in the head. I think the people who most want to buy and read books are the same people who most strongly object to censorship. Actually the desire of those people for access to all of the data is likely to cause them to read more books from all angles. (And I really don't think the fans of the goddess of hate could actually be reading more than one book a year.)
Amazon's money-grubbing slanted policies have so damaged their credibility that I actively avoid buying anything from them (unless I really can't find another source--but unfortunately they are also abusing their market influence to become an increasingly monopolistic sole source).
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Why not give two ratings:
Registered Users Rate this Book: 2.2
Anonymous Users Rate this Book: 4.8
To prevent multiple sign-ups as "registered users" you would restrict the class of "registered users" to those who have made at least one Amazon.com purchase with a unique name on their credit card.
Such a system could be gamed, but only at a much higher cost and level of effort.
Brian
Like Digital Freedoms? Then donate to EFF before they're gone.
I was interested to see the reference to her, because she's been cross-posting all her reviews in various places all over the net, including my own site, which catalogs and reviews free books. I didn't realize until I read the Times article yesterday that she was also posting them on Amazon, which is a big problem for me, because when you post a review on Amazon, they make you turn over your copyright to them. So I'm potentially liable for violating their copyright on my site. She did this despite some very clearly worded warnings on my site not to do that. Now she's started crapflooding my site with reviews containing false information. Really nice.
More info on my site. It's amazing what an ethical cesspool online book reviews (and movie reviews, and software reviews,...) are.
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