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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

#131

Post by KajMagnus »

jonathankoren wrote: post #106
qaq wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Does this indicate that by not fixing the fake reviews problem, Amazon can, whenever it wants, get rid of a troublesome competitor?

(since the competitors are sort of forced to use fake reviews)

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

#132

Post by sundvor »

strogonoff wrote: post #83

A couple of days ago I realised that I started treating vast amounts of followers or positive reviews as a red flag. This first happened as I was looking at a Blackmagicdesign product with staggeringly many 5-star reviews and seemingly zero bound to have poor feedback from bad units, mismatched expectations, courier mishaps, etc.? Those manufacturer could be innocent; outlier where somehow everyone’s satisfied. Still…

It's gotten to the point where if you leave an honest review of a bad experience you might face a defamation lawsuit.

I wish I was joking, but: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-20/before-you-write-that...

Also leaving anything other than a 5 star review is basically criticizing the company and guaranteed to upset.

This is absolutely rubbish; an e.g. 3/5 should be the baseline for acceptable service, and 4/5 reserved for exceptional quality.

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

#133

Post by locallost »

Generally I'd say product reviews are one of those ideas like passwords that work but don't survive introduction to the general public and mass use. The problems of authenticity are obvious, but I've also noticed that people who rely on word of mouth from their friends and colleagues are generally happier. And why wouldn't they be? A colleague tells you this e.g. monitor is perfect for your line of work so you get it and find it also good. No fuss, nothing nerve wracking, no time wasted. Compared with reading through dozens of reviews that even when authentic raise good points that are maybe entirely irrelevant to you.

I try to buy stuff in shops now. It's more expensive only if my time spent on reading reviews is free. And these days it's not even more expensive to buy in real shops anyway.

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

#134

Post by blfr »

jonathankoren wrote: post #106
qaq wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I would have called this conspiracy territory

It is a conspiracy theory. Some of them are just true.

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

#135

Post by lifeisstillgood »

zipiridu wrote: post #30
ekianjo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know reviews were more reliable before ? In pretty much all industries people were hacking reviews before especially when channels were more limited. Nobody invented fraud yesterday.

The "fraud economy" was democratized in the last decade but it has always existed. Previously you needed to be rich, powerful, and well connected to have media companies cover your business/product. Now you can buy fake engagement, reviews, upvotes, etc with a few click so everyone does it. If you don't do it you will be outcompeted by the ones who do. I've experienced this myself. I tried buying ads and writing orga…

>>> The "fraud economy" was democratized in the last decade but it has always existed. Previously you needed to be rich, powerful, and well connected to have media companies cover your business/product. Now you can buy fake engagement, reviews, upvotes, etc with a few click so everyone does it.

Yes. And this is a pattern we are seeing all over - thank you. It's it necessarily good or bad. just more open, democratic, cheaper.

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

#136

Post by throwaway6EQUJ5 »

paul7986 wrote: post #35
beebmam wrote: post #12

There's a whole fraud economy that has emerged in the last decade or so. Its existence has done deep harm to social trust, in my opinion. It extends far beyond just fake reviews of course; it reaches deep into the corrupt business practices and politicians/governments around the world.

Don't forget all media especially political and world news media! Zero trust in any of those reality TV outlets. I mean there are tons of resources and sites now to fact check the media (whether that's the media themselves like USA Today's fact checking section to non-profits), which is ridiculous if such resources are needed to constantly check what's true or not. Thus, i've tuned out and not a fan of people who plu…

>They do not think for themselves rather their idiot media machine controls them!

Everyone ultimately has to rely on authorities about subjects. From parents to scientist. It's a dilemma, you can't know/research everything your self but you also shouldn't trust blindy everything you get told, so there is no final solution.

The only thing you can do is never stop questioning, falsify everything, don't deem anything above it as sacred. This way, you will collect a shifting world view from all sources.

If you don't engage with your news channels, if you don't question in a meaningful way, if you discredit whole groups of outlets just by virtue, you have surrendered.

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

#137

Post by wly_cdgr »

locallost wrote: post #133

Generally I'd say product reviews are one of those ideas like passwords that work but don't survive introduction to the general public and mass use. The problems of authenticity are obvious, but I've also noticed that people who rely on word of mouth from their friends and colleagues are generally happier. And why wouldn't they be? A colleague tells you this e.g. monitor is perfect for your line of work so you get it…

Stop trying to make no passwords happen. It won't happen

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

#138

Post by strogonoff »

chx wrote: post #130
strogonoff wrote: post #83

A couple of days ago I realised that I started treating vast amounts of followers or positive reviews as a red flag. This first happened as I was looking at a Blackmagicdesign product with staggeringly many 5-star reviews and seemingly zero bound to have poor feedback from bad units, mismatched expectations, courier mishaps, etc.? Those manufacturer could be innocent; outlier where somehow everyone’s satisfied. Still…

Indeed -- the real meat often is in two star reviews. One star is a knee jerk reaction, competitor buying fake review and more, usually useless. But two star typically means someone thought a bit before writing it. I found many genuine problems with products reading two star review -- and more than once, I decided to do buy because the problems were acceptable. This tactic works more often than not but I am worried w…

My tactic is similar: find 2–3 star reviews; find what they didn’t like; if it’s for reasons irrelevant to me—buy. Sadly, it breaks when there’s a flood of paid reviews or when factual reviews are censored.

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

#139

Post by evgen »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #135
zipiridu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "fraud economy" was democratized in the last decade but it has always existed. Previously you needed to be rich, powerful, and well connected to have media companies cover your business/product. Now you can buy fake engagement, reviews, upvotes, etc with a few click so everyone does it. If you don't do it you will be outcompeted by the ones who do. I've experienced this myself. I tried buying ads and writing orga…

>>> The "fraud economy" was democratized in the last decade but it has always existed. Previously you needed to be rich, powerful, and well connected to have media companies cover your business/product. Now you can buy fake engagement, reviews, upvotes, etc with a few click so everyone does it. Yes. And this is a pattern we are seeing all over - thank you. It's it necessarily good or bad. just more open, democratic,…

The fact that it was previously restricted to only monied interests means that it was relatively rare in the past. Yes, there were the magazines and floating 'reviewers' who everyone learned were shills for whatever company was paying them for a good review, but the bulk of the reviews were earnestly trying to live up to consumer expectations for such reviews. Once things became more 'democratic' and cheaper we saw the review version of Gresham's Law at work -- fraudulent reviews flooded out sincere ones and the system has mostly because useless for its intended purpose, it is now just another marketing channel.

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

#140

Post by ashwagary »

wly_cdgr wrote: post #137
locallost wrote: post #133

Generally I'd say product reviews are one of those ideas like passwords that work but don't survive introduction to the general public and mass use. The problems of authenticity are obvious, but I've also noticed that people who rely on word of mouth from their friends and colleagues are generally happier. And why wouldn't they be? A colleague tells you this e.g. monitor is perfect for your line of work so you get it…

Stop trying to make no passwords happen. It won't happen

It can happen, I've seen many Lightning Network applications that do account creation/login and identity verification using LN wallets/nodes/etc.

I wouldn't consider those solutions passwords in the traditional sense.

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