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Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

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Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#261

Post by DrillShopper »

like_any_other wrote: post #159
colonial wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is awful when it comes to striking down accusatory customer reviews. Last year I (like a fool) purchased some chunky thru-hole MOSFETs on Amazon. Lo and behold, despite the datasheets promising a few amps with 3.3V at the gate, I only got a few milliamps. Obviously counterfeit - but no matter how hard I tried or how much indirection I employed, Amazon always took down my review warning others of this verifiabl…

So Amazon is complicit in fraud.

Facilitating fraud.

Didn't Napster get buttfucked for "facilitating" piracy?

Should have been owned by Bezos so they'd be immune from laws that affect only mere mortals.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#262

Post by dsign »

probably_wrong wrote: post #110
Mtinie wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the rational option if someone is giving you something for less than it costs you and the moral implications of the action is minimal (at best).

All moral implications are minimal if your morals are flexible enough. The OP is effectively taking thousands of dollars in bribes to erode public trust. I think even a child would see that this is wrong. I know every man has their price, but I hope when the time comes my price will be higher than "a bunch of vacuums I don't need and I can't even be bothered to sell".

I see where you are coming from, but this is Amazon, a juggernaut which is impossible to render accountable. So, OP is effectively filling their shed space with things which are useless to them and whose monetary value they won't realize. They are also tainting their soul. But by posting fake reviews, they erode trust on Amazon and cause it (some) financial harm. OP is, thus, doing a public service at some personal expense.

I often buy products from Amazon based on how fast they can deliver, with the soonest being approximately five days where I live. They routinely advertise one delivery time and deliver three or four days later, which essentially is false advertising and harmful to local businesses who could easily compete on delivery time. And this is Amazon fulfillment.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#263

Post by wildzzz »

dankwizard wrote: post #63
Retr0id wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand going for the "free upgrade" the first time around, but why continue racking up more vacuum cleaners after that? Do you plan to sell them later?

You sound like my wife. I don't know. I grew up kind of poor and my mindset still has a "If I can get an item typically worth $100-200 for free, TAKE IT". The plan was to flip them on FB market place but I've just hoarded them.

Just hand them out as gifts to friends and family. Stick vacs for Christmas. Maybe keep a spare handy when the first one eventually breaks.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#264

Post by rhcom2 »

bentcorner wrote: post #11

> Mozilla couldn't find a sustainable business model for Fakespot despite its popularity I don't know if it's fair for me to armchair quarterback, but still - what was their business model when they decided to do the acquisition? From the outside looking in barely did anything whatsoever. I browse Amazon using Firefox extremely often and I don't recall seeing any helper UI pop up. Even so, what would have been their…

Similar feelings about Pocket too. Mozilla seems to be on a cleaning spree

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#265

Post by mschuster91 »

brookst wrote: post #181
like_any_other wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Amazon is complicit in fraud.

It’s fun to be outraged but a more nuanced read is that Amazon is stuck battling all kinds of fraud and it can be hard to differentiate. They also have a massive problem with fake bad reviews where a competitor spams competing products to try to increase sales of their own. They have so many flavors of fraud that it’s very hard to get it right consistently at scale. Not am Amazon fan, and please let’s not do the Redd…

> It’s fun to be outraged but a more nuanced read is that Amazon is stuck battling all kinds of fraud and it can be hard to differentiate.

Well that's on Amazon then. They could go the Walmart route and enforce in-house random testing on the stuff they sell. Walmart, for all the rightful hate they get, Aldi, Lidl, Costco, Coop, they all have very strict and extensive negotiations for purchase, and they can, do and will refuse shipments from vendors that fail to meet QA.

But they don't, that's how Bezos got one of the richest men in the world. And Amazon got entrenched way too fast for regulators to ever meaningfully catch up.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#266

Post by Scoundreller »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #162
Scoundreller wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for what I buy from aliexpress, it hasn’t been infiltrated by fake reviews. Lots of incomprehensible or useless human ones though. (And bad machine translations by aliexpress…)

"It's great! Haven't tried it yet, but it looks nice" (average aliexpress review on many tech items)

“Item received, will update later when I try it” = it killed them

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#267

Post by dzhiurgis »

Scoundreller wrote: post #96
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon are becoming like AliExpress and Temu. They can always do it cheaper, but the quality is touch and go. Now with fake reviews it alot harder to tell what's good quality and what's not.

At least for what I buy from aliexpress, it hasn’t been infiltrated by fake reviews. Lots of incomprehensible or useless human ones though. (And bad machine translations by aliexpress…)

I’ve been playing with cssbuy (there is pandabuy too) lately. Aliexpress range at temu prices basically.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#268

Post by LorenPechtel »

crazygringo wrote: post #209
colonial wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is awful when it comes to striking down accusatory customer reviews. Last year I (like a fool) purchased some chunky thru-hole MOSFETs on Amazon. Lo and behold, despite the datasheets promising a few amps with 3.3V at the gate, I only got a few milliamps. Obviously counterfeit - but no matter how hard I tried or how much indirection I employed, Amazon always took down my review warning others of this verifiabl…

You can't use the word "counterfeit" or suggest that. But you can absolutely give 1 star and explain you only got milliamps. I have a bunch of 1 star reviews. I've never had anything taken down except when I used the word "counterfeit". Also, I get it -- how do you know if it's actually counterfeit, or genuine but low-quality? There are a bunch of things I've bought that I suspected were counterfeit, then went to my…

But sometimes you know it's counterfeit.

I've had one taken down. I pointed out the deception in the naming and that the product looked nothing like the real thing, nor did it fit. Only later did I realize they were selling it as "Genuine Beam", not that it was genuine "Beam"--I thought they were just making clear that it wasn't a knockoff. (Beam is the actual company name.)

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#269

Post by LorenPechtel »

brookst wrote: post #181
like_any_other wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Amazon is complicit in fraud.

It’s fun to be outraged but a more nuanced read is that Amazon is stuck battling all kinds of fraud and it can be hard to differentiate. They also have a massive problem with fake bad reviews where a competitor spams competing products to try to increase sales of their own. They have so many flavors of fraud that it’s very hard to get it right consistently at scale. Not am Amazon fan, and please let’s not do the Redd…

Yeah, they can't always get it right but something that would go a long way towards combatting it: Reputation scores on reporting. Accounts that have spent a fair amount of money over a fair amount of time and which do not have a track record of making false reports should be allowed to flag things. And if a product gets enough flags a human looks into it. The more times you flag something that is deemed wrong the more your vote counts in the future. The more times they decide it's clearly legit the less your vote counts. (And there would be a not sure range in the middle that produces no change.)

And let me flag this is a that. Many years ago I reported a search that returned three pages of results for one product that only comes by the box and by the case. Last I looked it was still three pages.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#270

Post by mcpar-land »

tomstockmail wrote: post #247
mcpar-land wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brendan Eich was fired for opposing gay marriage, then went on to create Brave, which is yet another Chromium wrapper just with bad crypto monetization and other scummy practices.

Couldn't imagine what Mozilla would be like today if he stayed around and tried to integrate crypto. At the end of the day, main post shows Firefox engineering is keeping up with Chrome which is a feat no other browser has accomplished.

For the record I also dislike the top brass at Mozilla for the same reasons I dislike Eich - trendchasing instead of making a good browser. Firefox is succeeding because of the engineers and despite the c-suite.
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