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Amazon Sues To Block Fake Reviews
An anonymous reader writes Amazon has filed suit against operators of sites that offer Amazon sellers the ability to purchase fake 4 and 5 star customer reviews. The suit is the first of its kind and was filed in King County Superior Court against a California man, Jay Gentile, identified in Amazon's filings as the operator of buyazonreviews.com. The site also targets unidentified "John Does" who operate similar sites: buyreviewsnow.com, bayreviews.net, and buyamazonreviews.com. From the article: "The site buyazonreviews.com, which the suit claims is run by Gentile, didn't respond to a request for comment. But Mark Collins, the owner of buyamazonreviews.com, denied Amazon's claims. In an email interview, Collins said the site simply offers to help Amazon's third-party sellers get reviews. 'We are not selling fake reviews. however we do provide Unbiased and Honest reviews on all the products,' Collins wrote. 'And this is not illegal at all.'"
"We are not selling fake reviews. however we do provide Unbiased and Honest reviews on all the products"
Wow, that's priceless. Oh, wait, no, it does have a price. Want to know how this works? From the site itself:
A purchase of your product is not required for us to post a review. If you would like a verified purchase review however we can buy your product first. If the cost is $2.00 or less we will cover the price. If it is more than this you will need to make arrangements with us to reimburse the cost. We are only accepting very limited amounts of verified purchase reviews, please contact us before ordering if you are interested in these.
Price List:
3 Reviews $74.26!
5 Reviews (Reg: $124.50, w/ 20% $99.60!)
10 Reviews (Reg: $249.50, w/ 20% $199.60!)
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200 Reviews (Reg: $4887.50, w/ 30% $3421.60)
I can see why Amazon wants to shut this down. It completely undermines the legitimacy of their user ratings system. Not a big surprise, of course, as just about any system will be gamed if at all possible when there's money involved.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
If these guys are so adamant that there is nothing wrong with paid reviews, ask them if they'd be willing to disclose in their reviews that they are paid.
If I were Amazon, I'd include a check box "I am not being paid or compensated for this review"... at least then they'd have reason to delete any from paid reviewers.
The "this is super and excellent" reviews don't tell me much. I look at the bad reviews. Usually you can get an idea if a product is any good by the type of bad review. If there are many good reviews, but one or two saying "delivered late", "wrong product", or "damaged in transit", then I figure that this can happen occasionally but can be sorted out if it does. Some reviews will be bad because of different use-cases ... if most people give high rating for sound quality on a radio but one or two say "distorts at high volume" then you'll probably be OK if you listen at reasonable volumes. Someone once gave a washer/dryer a 2 start review because it took over three hours for a complete wash/dry cycle. For us that didn't matter - we run it a few times a week and just set it going until it ends. Someone might complain about "complicated controls" on an SLR camera or "lack of flexibility" on a point and shoot ... again it might not matter to you.
On the other hand if a lot of people complain about the general quality of an item, or lack of functionality that you would actually use then that's a good reason to stay away from one.
" every reviewer would state their skillset and experience with similar products"
That's often evident from the reviews. 2-4 star reviews tend to be the most helpful, and there are often good points made in them. Expecting all of them to be useful or applicable to your situation would be like expecting all the /. story comments to be insightful, or to have a MS or Apple thread without trolls and fanbois in the mix. It just ain't gonna happen.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Interesting, how would you prove a review is fake, written with no experience of the product?
Doesn't really matter if it is fake or not if it is paid. If the review is a paid review then it is by definition written with at least a secondary motive and therefore by definition cannot be considered unbiased. Buying reviews arguably harms the reputation of Amazon and could affect their sales and thus would potentially constitute tortious interference with their business.
One problem with that is people tend to overestimate their skillset and experience, so telling who actually has a useful background and who does not, well, it just is not possible. Anyone who thinks it is probably needs to reevaluate their own skillset and experience because they are overestimating it.