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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

#91

Post by Scoundreller »

techrat wrote: post #79
tw04 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Consumer Reports buys the products they review. They can't be blacklisted if they're not relying on the manufacturer to send them a free demo/item. (Youtube/Blog) Reviewers get blacklisted by companies by not providing a positive review about a product they were given . As they rely on scooping type style reviews, this means they not only don't get a free product to review, but they can't review it until after it's f…

Only problem is that CR then needs to wait until release day to start its review. While the corrupt get advance copies to review that get released in advance, or are embargoed until release day, but still, will get published way before CR can publish a proper review.

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

#92

Post by sellyme »

i_like_apis wrote: post #9
yellow_lead wrote: post #2

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)

> It isn't really Amazon that does it though, it's the sellers on Amazon.

If Amazon doesn't want the responsibility of having to make sure stuff on their website is actually legal, then maybe they shouldn't have made letting everyone sell stuff on their site their entire business model.

They want all the profits of being a middleman but without taking any of the associated responsibility. It's a hilariously crap excuse.

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

#93

Post by Scoundreller »

oceanghost wrote: post #60
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.

Can confirm. In an industry I was in, the trade publication gave the "product of the year" award to whoever bought the most advertisements in the magazine.

I think that's true of all trade rags, as well as any top X under/over Y pubs.

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

#94

Post by qaq »

makeitdouble wrote: post #80
mkhpalm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example I can remember from 10+ years ago was newegg. I don't recall ever really feeling like I got "duped" based on the many online reviews there. I think that sentiment was pretty well revered and not just my personal opinions of it. Everything was pretty well spot on from my experiences. That said, I have no idea how that would fair these days. I'll even go so far as to say back when Amazon was getting started…

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.

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

#95

Post by thow-58d4e8b »

Scoundreller wrote: post #90
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…

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

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

#97

Post by formvoltron »

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 printing money. And a sizable part of that problem was caused by a near 20 year war with Afghanistan & Iraq -- completely useless wars - as most are. With the world teetering into collapse due to climate change. And most "technologists" more interested in travel to Mars.

The real technology in this world is biological. Way beyond human understanding. So go and make some silly new technology. Get some VC money to pump it up into the land of nonsense valuation. Hurry up, get yours before the whole pile falls back into the gutter.

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

#98

Post by victor9000 »

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.

Could you be more specific?

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

#99

Post by Scoundreller »

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

The social networks don't mind the bots if it leads to engagement. Their "anti-bot" policy is a joke. They know who the bots are. They only ban the ones that are anti-engagement (which they can also determine).

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

#100

Post by joe_the_user »

cortesoft wrote: post #13
Waterluvian wrote: post #7

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?

People either got their reviews from quality, trusted third parties like Consumer Reports, or they got reviews from friends. It would be pretty expensive to bribe consumer reports, and it isn't as cost effective to pay someone to give fake recommendations to their friends as it is to pay for fake recommendations on a website. Although some companies do that; it is called multi level marketing.

Pre-Internet, people got a lot of review from magazines. Consumer Reports was unique at that time for not accepting advertising on products it reviewed and it's still somewhat unique that way.

I think whether someone got advice from friends pre-Internet varied by what you were buying. Your friends couldn't tell what type of professional speakers to buy, for example unless they were musicians and then they likely had arbitrary biases.

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