FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews
1–10 of 281 posts
Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews
#2I wonder if they have any intention of going after Amazon - probably not.
Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews
#3I wonder if they have any intention of going after Amazon - probably not.
I believe this is about businesses that commission those fake reviews. Amazon doesn't commission them. They just aren't effective at removing them.
Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews
#4VPN review sites, take note
Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews
#5I wonder if they have any intention of going after Amazon - probably not.
Amazon is listed as one of the companies receiving the notice, though as the list says that's not evidence that they've done anything wrong. Google, Pepsi, and others who are unlikely to be involved in this are there too
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/penalty-offense...
Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews
#6I wonder if they have any intention of going after Amazon - probably not.
Section 230 protects Amazon from this. They could still go after Amazon if they believe Amazon is negligent in fake user review controls. On paper I think Amazon probably does a lot, but probably not enough.
Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews
#7Random thought: before the Internet were reviews any better? I know there were/are quality reviews like Consumer Reports and such. But were there any crowdsourced reviews?
Are we worse off or are we just needing to protect people from their inability to scrutinize a new source of bad data?
Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews
#8no way to reliably prove if review is fake or not. nothing to stop someone from having friends and family leave positive reviews or just make multiple accounts. If someone leaves a glowing review for a shitty product, then technically it is still real.
Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews
#9I wonder if they have any intention of going after Amazon - probably not.
It isn't really Amazon that does it though, it's the sellers on Amazon.
Although it would be interesting if there were ever fake reviews on the Amazon branded products. (AFIK there aren't)
Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews
#10I wonder if they have any intention of going after Amazon - probably not.
Amazon is listed as one of the companies receiving the notice, though as the list says that's not evidence that they've done anything wrong. Google, Pepsi, and others who are unlikely to be involved in this are there too https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/penalty-offense...
> Google, Pepsi, and others who are unlikely to be involved in this are there too
It's possible for big companies to "be involved" via third parties. For instance, Big Company pays Big Agency, who allocates some spend to Unscrupulous Digital Marketing Firm or Shady Digital Advertising Service.
This doesn't mean that Big Company intentionally engaged in bad behavior but on the other hand, big companies tend to work with so many third parties that "hear no evil, see no evil" and plausible deniability are built in to their operations.