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Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

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Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#31

Post by yojo »

wp381640 wrote: post #24

Reviews are broken. There needs to be a web of trust for reviews. I would weight a review from somebody I know or trust 1000x more than every Amazon or online review ever left. It's not just store reviews that are broken - web search is also completely broken because of affiliate spam I spent far too much time at the moment with each purchase researching and tracking down trusted reviews.

Unless it’s a really big ticket item I’ve given up on product research as the investment is just not worth my time. I just buy whatever Wirecutter tells me to; usually they’re not too wrong.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#32

Post by waynesonfire »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #28
throwaway_1301 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I feel more comfortable commenting on this vs such posts about Google (my employer) because I don't have to worry about leaking anything important but this is absolutely not a piece of cake. Anyone who has worked on planet scale anti-abuse systems knows this is a very tough and never ending problem. You think there are obvious signals for good or bad - the 0.01% cases where this does not hold up turns to 20 m…

Amazon: send requests to your customers at random to review products they purchased (perhaps reimburse them for their time with a gift card). Post only those reviews.

How will that help? The seller can still influence and finance the buyers. It may be more expensive but I'm certain the seller will do what is necessary for those high rankings. The stakes are that high.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#33

Post by cmeacham98 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #17
throwaway_1301 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I feel more comfortable commenting on this vs such posts about Google (my employer) because I don't have to worry about leaking anything important but this is absolutely not a piece of cake. Anyone who has worked on planet scale anti-abuse systems knows this is a very tough and never ending problem. You think there are obvious signals for good or bad - the 0.01% cases where this does not hold up turns to 20 m…

This is a bit like arguing that Medicare for all is impossible in the United States because it is such a big country. This is a straw man argument, because only relative terms matter. Nobody cares about the absolute numbers except your boss . The customers care about their percentage chance of encountering spam and fake reviews. You're saying it's too hard to achieve 100% success (0% failure rate), and that we should…

You've fallen into a common statistical trap. If we assume the volume of auto-generated spam is significantly (several orders of magnitude) higher than the volume of legitimate reviews (which seems to be the case, and would make sense), having a 99.999% success rate doesn't mean that users will observe 99.999% legitimate reviews.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#35

Post by Spivak »

wp381640 wrote: post #24

Reviews are broken. There needs to be a web of trust for reviews. I would weight a review from somebody I know or trust 1000x more than every Amazon or online review ever left. It's not just store reviews that are broken - web search is also completely broken because of affiliate spam I spent far too much time at the moment with each purchase researching and tracking down trusted reviews.

Google tried this in the Play Store. People hated it because it was super creepy.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#36

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

etchalon wrote: post #26

I don't understand how easy it could be to Google around a bit and find companies offering this service, but its seemingly impossible to stop at scale. Employ a group of people to go undercover with these firms, who are purposefully violating your platforms TOS, and enact draconian measures against the brands your employees encounter. The risk would quickly not be worth the reward.

> undercover with these firms, who are purposefully violating your platforms TOS

These “brands” are sometimes a few guys in a garage in China. Shut them down and they popup with a new name the next day, like whack-a-mole.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#37

Post by eagsalazar2 »

wp381640 wrote: post #24

Reviews are broken. There needs to be a web of trust for reviews. I would weight a review from somebody I know or trust 1000x more than every Amazon or online review ever left. It's not just store reviews that are broken - web search is also completely broken because of affiliate spam I spent far too much time at the moment with each purchase researching and tracking down trusted reviews.

Web of trust doesn't scale. This isn't broken because most reviewers can't be trusted. It is broken because a very very few actors are abusing these systems. As someone above pointed out, Amazon can fix this. It isn't a hard problem. The issue is, their incentives are not aligned with fixing it.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#38

Post by redisman »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #36
etchalon wrote: post #26

I don't understand how easy it could be to Google around a bit and find companies offering this service, but its seemingly impossible to stop at scale. Employ a group of people to go undercover with these firms, who are purposefully violating your platforms TOS, and enact draconian measures against the brands your employees encounter. The risk would quickly not be worth the reward.

> undercover with these firms, who are purposefully violating your platforms TOS These “brands” are sometimes a few guys in a garage in China. Shut them down and they popup with a new name the next day, like whack-a-mole.

Yeah they just buy white label cheap commodities and will slap a new sticker on it if you “crack down” on them somehow

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#39

Post by HenryKissinger »

harry8 wrote: post #30

Amazon loves fake reviews as long as they are 5 star. The more it looks like people buying stuff using amazon are happy, the better that marketing is for Amazon. Look at all these people who are so happy to be buying stuff on Amazon, so much better than the alternatives. Amazon could clean this up and then watch the average drop. From the removal of the fake fives but also it makes it look more "socially accpetable"…

Disruptive solution proposal: Get rid of the review system entirely. Stars, comments, user pictures; eliminate all of it. For everyone.

There. Problem solved.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#40

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

yojo wrote: post #31
wp381640 wrote: post #24

Reviews are broken. There needs to be a web of trust for reviews. I would weight a review from somebody I know or trust 1000x more than every Amazon or online review ever left. It's not just store reviews that are broken - web search is also completely broken because of affiliate spam I spent far too much time at the moment with each purchase researching and tracking down trusted reviews.

Unless it’s a really big ticket item I’ve given up on product research as the investment is just not worth my time. I just buy whatever Wirecutter tells me to; usually they’re not too wrong.

OMG wire cutter. Affiliate advertising once removed.

EDIT: NextDesk scandal aside, when was the last time you saw WireCutter recommend a product that did NOT offer affiliate commissions (let’s just call a spade a spade: these are kickbacks).

I don’t use WC anymore so I can’t answer that myself. I stopped using them when I saw some companies completely ignored in 2 different industries with which I’m familiar. Those companies did not have kickbacks.

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