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FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

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Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#101

Post by kube-system »

foota wrote: post #56
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ebay seller reviews have been fraudulent for 20 years or more (not ALL reviews, of course). And i think you are talking about the times before NewEgg had 3rd party sellers.

Honestly, I think 3rd party sellers are half the problem. Eliminating them won't fix everything though, since there are sites where the 1st party itself is dishonest (e.g., yelp), but if you trust the site and it is all 1st party then you're in a good state for reviews, since there's little incentive for anyone to fake them.

Manufacturers or importers/distributors would still have incentive to fake them.

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#102

Post by thow-58d4e8b »

rule of thumb - for the highest signal/noise ratio, look for reviews that give mediocre, but positive ratings - in the range of 6/10 to 8/10.

This filters out bots, fake reviews and low-effort negatives (product is ok, but shipping!)

What's left is man-made reviews that praise what is praiseworthy, and highlight the real drawbacks the products suffer from

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#103

Post by thereisnospork »

devwastaken wrote: post #87

Good. Now also fine game companies releasing broken products. Fine any company selling products with "warranty void if removed" stickers. Mass shut down fake sale websites that do not sell the product imaged. I want to see the ftc breaking down doors and deleting entire companies off the face of the earth for their illigal practices. I can dream of course.

It is staggering the extent to which we as a society tolerate flagrant lying[0] and I worry about the long reaching implications of the inevitable erosion of trust it will cause.

[0]A personal pet peeve: Dump trucks with 'not liable for broken windshields' on the back. A patently incorrect assertion in every jurisdiction I've come across, written for the express intent of coercing wronged persons out of owed compensation. Yet somehow this doesn't seem to meet the bar for criminal fraud.

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#104

Post by kabes »

thow-58d4e8b wrote: post #95
Scoundreller wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find funny is when some multibillion company buys tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, but each post gets like 1 like or 1 comment. Like, hello!!!!! But maybe it's because of FTC rules: fake followers are legally okay, but fake likes and fake comments could be considered a fake review and therefore FTC violation.

Another giveaway is accounts posting multi-sentence comments or reviews within seconds of their previous submissions. How can this get past bot checks is beyond me

For the same reason that on facebook I still get daily friend requests from very sexy women with a brand new profile, 4 friends total, none in common, in a random location in the world with 1 post linking to some dating site. It's because they just don't care. Well, either that or facebook engineers are completely incompetent.

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#105

Post by kube-system »

tw04 wrote: post #41
lazide wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge portion of those reviews were payola, plain and simple. If a reviewer didn’t provide at least a somewhat positive review (even for complete dreck), they were often blacklisted.

Blacklisted how? 20 years ago consumer reports was considered a trusted source and they purchased everything they reviewed. How are you going to blacklist someone from going to the store and buying your product?

CR is the exception, and that’s why they charge their subscribers a lot of money.

The vast majority of publications fund “reviews” in different ways.

Some publications you can pay to have your product “featured” in.

In some others, companies give a reviewer who has a reputation for favorable reviews free products. The unspoken expectation is that the reviews will drive sales and that the free product (and free content) train keeps going.

And yet others have serious conflicts of interest with their supporting advertisers.

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#106

Post by jonathankoren »

qaq wrote: post #94
makeitdouble wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be pointed out that current fake review issues are not just on fraudulent products. For instance Aukey has been caught by Amazon, but in my experience their products were pretty good, and they probably played the fake review game mainly due to everyone else playing it, and it became an arms race.

The cynical take Aukey was taken out because they had good products and good reputation in a high margin category that Amazon wanted for their house brand to play a bigger role in.

I would have called this conspiracy territory, but then it broke that Amazon was doing exactly that in India.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-i...

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#108

Post by keleftheriou »

formvoltron wrote: post #97

Thanks. About 8 years too late to save my business... Scanner911. Killed by fake reviews on Apple's App Store. RIP In reality vast swaths of the world economy are entirely fake, supported with fake reviews, or fake analyst stock calls. It can be argued that much of the value in the technology space is entirely fake. Look at the current insane multiples. My point is that all this lying is supercharged due to Fed print…

Can you share more details about how your business was killed by fake reviews on Apple's App Store? I’m @keleftheriou on Twitter.

Re: FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

#110

Post by jiveturkey »

thereisnospork wrote: post #103
devwastaken wrote: post #87

Good. Now also fine game companies releasing broken products. Fine any company selling products with "warranty void if removed" stickers. Mass shut down fake sale websites that do not sell the product imaged. I want to see the ftc breaking down doors and deleting entire companies off the face of the earth for their illigal practices. I can dream of course.

It is staggering the extent to which we as a society tolerate flagrant lying[0] and I worry about the long reaching implications of the inevitable erosion of trust it will cause. [0]A personal pet peeve: Dump trucks with 'not liable for broken windshields' on the back. A patently incorrect assertion in every jurisdiction I've come across, written for the express intent of coercing wronged persons out of owed compensa…

thank you! i seethe every time i see that sticker. i almost (almost) want to get hit with debris when i see that, so i can stick it to them.
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