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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.”
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MrGuy on Friday April 10 2015, @12:38PM
This is a fundamental issue with crowdsourced recommendations. If buyers trust them, they create a financial incentive for sellers to improve their scores. And as long as that incentive exists, someone out there will gladly fill the market niche and provide good review scores for money. The problem with trusting strangers' opinions is that you don't know these people, or what their true experiences or motivations are.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @01:20PM
Maybe a way to at least reduce that effect is to give every reviewer an "agreement score" based on how well for articles both you and that reviewer scored, your scores agree. For calculating averages, the individual results would then be weighted by the corresponding agreement score.
Sure, this could probably also be gamed, but at least it would be much harder to do so.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday April 10 2015, @01:30PM
This only works for people who do a lot of reviews. I basically only write a review when something is terrible, or it's awesome in a linux/arduino way when that information is hard or impossible to find. For the vast majority of things I buy, I don't write a review.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ikanreed on Friday April 10 2015, @01:24PM
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.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday April 10 2015, @02:27PM
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
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
You get screwed but not as often.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday April 10 2015, @04:26PM
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.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @03:47PM
A simple approach - though far from perfect - is to limit reviewers to only those individuals who are confirmed purchasers of that product from that source (in this case Amazon). If they return the item their review goes away. Plus, no reviews for a minimum number of days after purchase (to avoid those "Five stars! I haven't tried it yet but the box looks just like the one on Amazon's website!")
(Score: 2, Insightful) by KiloByte on Saturday April 11 2015, @07:53AM
If they return the item their review goes away.
Why? A return combined with a negative review is likely to be sincere.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Friday April 10 2015, @05:48PM
Usually I read the one star reviews first, just to see what exactly people are complaining about. Now, often the one star reviews are because the moron who purchased the product is simply trying to use it for the wrong purpose, but sometimes they point out specific flaws or limitations. I'll work my way through the review list, keeping in mind that something may be faked, but in general you should be able to get a sense of whether the product is for you or not. Of course, if it is a bigger ticket item, you should be doing more research anyway and maybe buying it from a source that specializes in that item (like buying a camera lens from B&H Photo rather than off Amazon).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Saturday April 11 2015, @09:25AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @06:32PM
That's true, and companies pay people six figure salaries to work out just how to control public perception (a whole lot more of this goes on than people generally realize) of products. If it's a big ticket or important item, you want more than a few Amazon reviews to make or break your purchase decision.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday April 10 2015, @06:37PM
But the alternative is certainly worse: astroturfing tries to use the people you know to deliver favorable reviews. So which would you prefer, a bunch of mercenary stranger shills on an internet site, or your friend making money giving you advice?
"One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is socially corrosive. The other is just a scam."