8 ms·

This is interesting - I do believe shill reviews are a form of fraud, and this lawsuit will put that perspective to the test. We'll get a court answer eventuall

This is interesting - I do believe shill reviews are a form of fraud, and this lawsuit will put that perspective to the test. We'll get a court answer eventually. What I find interesting is trying to prove harm done by the fake reviews. If they're against the terms of service, okay, ban the accounts, and take some back-room steps to monitor if those persons try to rejoin (e.g. limited utility of IP address focus). I don't think we're talking about criminal masterminds here. I'm kind of joking here, but I'd almost try out the defense that paid five-star reviews are a "necessary evil" to counter the inevitable "idiot with a keyboard" which enables any wrong-thinking person to write a one-star review. What I mean is will this case include evidence that non-paid reviewers are just as damaging - if not more so - than paid fake ones. Or, in other words, can Amazon prove genuine harm via "fraud" is able to be differentiated from "stupid people saying stupid, wrong things" in the comment environment. Personally, I think it's an "in-house" Amazon issue where they should be 'moderating' comments, but that takes labor and effort; if I've learned anything about Amazon's view of menial labor tasks such as fulfillment, I don't think anybody would want the job. If there's better money in fraud than policing the fraud, then maybe the business model should be re-evaluated. I'm not trying to justify what is done for hire - to me it's about on par with "essay writers for hire" and I hate that shit - but it does make for an interesting problem of commerce.

devit 11y ago
It's pretty obvious that it is far more damaging. The reviews from "stupid people" are limited by the ratio of "stupid people" to "smart people", and thus merely change the scale and add some noise, mostly uniformly across all products in a given category: the system is worse, but still usable. On the other hand, enough fake reviews on a system with discretized scores will result in all products having the maximum score and having almost all reviews presented being fake: the system is now completely useless.
- z6 11y ago
  Exactly this. I've recently come across a lot of these very highly rated products (with thousands of reviews) and almost immediately you see many of the reviews saying "company gave me the product for free to write an honest and unbiased review." To me, this completely invalidates the rating and I typically try to find a different product because it's too time consuming to try to find real reviews. On the other hand, 'stupid people' don't tip the scale like that and in some ways their reviews are useful because you can be sure those people were not 'paid'. Also, they may complain about something that isn't really a negative in general, or specifically to you, so you can use that to make your decision.
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    This reminds me of radio advertising on AM/FM - the personalities will frequently discuss how they've used the Service Provider X and you should too! They've received compensation. They're in the business of entertainment, yet are "breaking the fourth wall" to advertise. I think I need to clarify a bit more though: Sometimes stupid people can be the loudest voice, as in, anti-vaccine folks who cite discredited science and refuse to back down. A more specific instance is when I worked retail - a guy bought his son a Nirvana CD, this one: http://images.weltrecords.de/img/cover/000/000/827/000000827012.jpg http://images.weltrecords.de/img/cover/000/000/827/000000827... He came in with a head of steam at me, mad because he couldn't returned the opened disc, and said, "This is garbage, it sounds like a bunch of home demos!" But that's exactly what the CD was, a collection of demos being offered to people who were interested in such things. He wanted to give it 1 star, essentially, for it being exactly what it was supposed to be. That's...bullshit. But that's an example of how yeah, people might read the review and not find it helpful, but this is how an erroneous opinion is spread. Should moderating that be the role of the platform like Amazon? For the record, I told him "Yes, that's what that CD is, and while you can't return it, you can probably sell it to a used CD store in your area and get a few bucks back. Here's the CD you want." http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1FEoCdDUmoE/TQ8Gz27WulI/AAAAAAAAAus/ALRdEKdy9AI/s1600/68116998.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1FEoCdDUmoE/TQ8Gz27WulI/AAAAAAAAAu... Note: Edited due to accusations of shilling, now just images for your reference. Tough crowd.
    - foob 11y ago
      Are the referral links really necessary in this context? The fact that you don't even mention the CD names makes this feel like click bait for Amazon referrals.
      - 6stringmerc 11y ago
        Haha wow, well, I guess if you want to see it that way. I can edit it to just show the graphics of the CD covers, so I'll do that. I seriously was not trying to plug anything, just, you know, give a citation for context. I'll fix it tout de suite.
- greggarious 11y ago
  How do you define "stupid people"? I don't feel particuarly intelligent - I often meet people with my IQ who have all sorts of illogical views, but according to an IQ test, I'm smarter than 95 out of a 100 people. If you accept that "stupid people" create bad reviews, then your argument falls apart pretty quickly.
  - gtremper 11y ago
    Replace "stupid people" with "people being stupid"
- Oatseller 11y ago
  "On the other hand, enough fake reviews on a system with discretized scores will result in all products having the maximum score and having almost all reviews presented being fake: the system is now completely useless." That's exactly what's happened to the non-fiction kindle books. The fakes are usually easy to spot [0] but sifting through all of that crap is a huge time sink and I've all but stopped buying them. [0] http://www.amazon.com/Management-Effectively-Personnel-Resolution-Motivation-ebook/dp/B00Z9EMA6Y/ http://www.amazon.com/Management-Effectively-Personnel-Resol...

devit 11y ago

It's pretty obvious that it is far more damaging. The reviews from "stupid people" are limited by the ratio of "stupid people" to "smart people", and thus merely change the scale and add some noise, mostly uniformly across all products in a given category: the system is worse, but still usable. On the other hand, enough fake reviews on a system with discretized scores will result in all products having the maximum score and having almost all reviews presented being fake: the system is now completely useless.

z6 11y ago
Exactly this. I've recently come across a lot of these very highly rated products (with thousands of reviews) and almost immediately you see many of the reviews saying "company gave me the product for free to write an honest and unbiased review." To me, this completely invalidates the rating and I typically try to find a different product because it's too time consuming to try to find real reviews. On the other hand, 'stupid people' don't tip the scale like that and in some ways their reviews are useful because you can be sure those people were not 'paid'. Also, they may complain about something that isn't really a negative in general, or specifically to you, so you can use that to make your decision.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  This reminds me of radio advertising on AM/FM - the personalities will frequently discuss how they've used the Service Provider X and you should too! They've received compensation. They're in the business of entertainment, yet are "breaking the fourth wall" to advertise. I think I need to clarify a bit more though: Sometimes stupid people can be the loudest voice, as in, anti-vaccine folks who cite discredited science and refuse to back down. A more specific instance is when I worked retail - a guy bought his son a Nirvana CD, this one: http://images.weltrecords.de/img/cover/000/000/827/000000827012.jpg http://images.weltrecords.de/img/cover/000/000/827/000000827... He came in with a head of steam at me, mad because he couldn't returned the opened disc, and said, "This is garbage, it sounds like a bunch of home demos!" But that's exactly what the CD was, a collection of demos being offered to people who were interested in such things. He wanted to give it 1 star, essentially, for it being exactly what it was supposed to be. That's...bullshit. But that's an example of how yeah, people might read the review and not find it helpful, but this is how an erroneous opinion is spread. Should moderating that be the role of the platform like Amazon? For the record, I told him "Yes, that's what that CD is, and while you can't return it, you can probably sell it to a used CD store in your area and get a few bucks back. Here's the CD you want." http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1FEoCdDUmoE/TQ8Gz27WulI/AAAAAAAAAus/ALRdEKdy9AI/s1600/68116998.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1FEoCdDUmoE/TQ8Gz27WulI/AAAAAAAAAu... Note: Edited due to accusations of shilling, now just images for your reference. Tough crowd.
  - foob 11y ago
    Are the referral links really necessary in this context? The fact that you don't even mention the CD names makes this feel like click bait for Amazon referrals.
    - 6stringmerc 11y ago
      Haha wow, well, I guess if you want to see it that way. I can edit it to just show the graphics of the CD covers, so I'll do that. I seriously was not trying to plug anything, just, you know, give a citation for context. I'll fix it tout de suite.
greggarious 11y ago
How do you define "stupid people"? I don't feel particuarly intelligent - I often meet people with my IQ who have all sorts of illogical views, but according to an IQ test, I'm smarter than 95 out of a 100 people. If you accept that "stupid people" create bad reviews, then your argument falls apart pretty quickly.
- gtremper 11y ago
  Replace "stupid people" with "people being stupid"
Oatseller 11y ago
"On the other hand, enough fake reviews on a system with discretized scores will result in all products having the maximum score and having almost all reviews presented being fake: the system is now completely useless." That's exactly what's happened to the non-fiction kindle books. The fakes are usually easy to spot [0] but sifting through all of that crap is a huge time sink and I've all but stopped buying them. [0] http://www.amazon.com/Management-Effectively-Personnel-Resolution-Motivation-ebook/dp/B00Z9EMA6Y/ http://www.amazon.com/Management-Effectively-Personnel-Resol...