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posted by on Friday April 10 2015, @12:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the that's-what-she-said dept.

Reuters reports that in the first ever suit of its kind from Amazon, the online retailer has sued four websites to stop them from selling fake, positive product reviews. The suit accuses Jay Gentile of California and websites that operate as buyamazonreviews.com and buyazonreviews.com, among others, of trademark infringement, false advertising and violations of the Anticyber­squatting Consumer Protection Act and the Washington Consumer Protection Act. Amazon says the defendants are misleading customers, and through their activity generating improper profit for themselves and a "handful" of dishonest sellers and manufacturers. Amazon says the defendants have caused reviews to be posted on its website intermittently, through a "slow drip" designed to evade its detection systems, at a typical cost of $19 to $22 per review. "While small in number, these reviews threaten to undermine the trust that customers, and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers, place in Amazon, thereby tarnishing Amazon’s brand."

Mark Collins, the owner of buyamazonreviews.com, denies Amazon’s claims and says the site simply offers to help Amazon’s third-party sellers get reviews. Collins defended his business, writing that his website operates as a “middleman,” connecting sellers with buyers willing to write reviews. The sellers provide reviewers with discounted items. But he said there are no restriction on the type of review they can post. “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.”

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by ikanreed on Friday April 10 2015, @01:24PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 10 2015, @01:24PM (#168733) Journal

    It's still better than trusting advertisements.

    Amazon has every right to sue, and a strong enough disincentive for abuse(delisting for seller, lawsuits for third parties) will, by your own logic, reduce abuse. Not eliminate, but change the supply and demand variables.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday April 10 2015, @02:27PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Friday April 10 2015, @02:27PM (#168746)

    My general rule when there's money involved is to trust as few people/organizations as possible.

    - Advertisements? Who would even remotely consider trusting them? Their job is to BS people.
    - Online reviews? Can be completely gamed by paid reviews or even just reviews by friends or relatives of whatever seller is being reviewed.
    - Offline recommendations from friends? Sometimes right, but frequently not.
    - Salespeople? Are you kidding me?
    - Specialty media reviews? It depends a lot on the reviewer and line of business they're in. A lot of those kinds of journals rely on the advertising from the businesses they're reviewing, which means that they're going to get a good review.

    So what are you left with?
    - Prefer commodities with a bunch of manufacturers over fancy patented stuff.
    - Avoid the "bleeding edge" unless you really really need it. The practical differences between, for example, a somewhat outdated $150 smartphone and a brand new $800 smartphone are just not great enough for most users to justify the $650.
    - Decide what it is you're looking for and then go try to buy it, rather than go shopping and then decide what you want.
    - When faced with a choice between seemingly identical products, when in doubt choose the lower price. You might still be wrong, but you will have lost less by that bet.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday April 10 2015, @02:50PM

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 10 2015, @02:50PM (#168754) Journal

      And then, after all that work, you still get screwed over. That's partially just how life is.

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 11 2015, @12:01AM

        by kaszz (4211) on Saturday April 11 2015, @12:01AM (#168865) Journal

        You get screwed but not as often.

  • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday April 10 2015, @04:26PM

    by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday April 10 2015, @04:26PM (#168771) Journal

    And the difference between this and Amazon Vine is....what exactly? They can sue all they want because all they have to do is point out that Amazon does this them selves through their Vine program. Do you think if amazon was giving ME free shit I wouldn't be more likely to post glowing reviews? The only difference i can see is who is writing the checks, that's all.

    --
    ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.