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I 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)
Random 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?
Before the internet, there were these things called "magazines". These magazines earned money by selling ads.
Advertisers sold products that were reviewed in the magazines they advertised in. And if a magazine's review was unfavorable to an advertisers product, that advertiser could reduce their ad spending.
Also, advertisers could "bribe" reviewers. Probably not with direct cash payments, but it was generally expected that a reviewer would be "gifted" the product reviewed.
So, this has always be a problem.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I 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.
They are liable
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.
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.
Of course, there were far fewer reviews available, companies still gamed reviewers/magazines but in different ways, and there was sometimes outright fraud around benchmarks, etc.
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.
Reviews were more "expert"-based 20 years or so again in magazines that had some editorial oversight and processes for selecting and reviewing products. Of course, there were far fewer reviews available, companies still gamed reviewers/magazines but in different ways, and there was sometimes outright fraud around benchmarks, etc.
Random 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?
And many quantitative things including TV ratings involved consumer surveys/polling.
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.
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.