I agree, Amazon reviews used to be useful, but are now largely useless. I used to find the reviews really helpful, to the point where I was much more likely to

I agree, Amazon reviews used to be useful, but are now largely useless. I used to find the reviews really helpful, to the point where I was much more likely to buy something with only a few minutes research on Amazon than on any other site (although amazon's money back guarantee helped too). Now though, I usually won't buy there without doing a lot more research, which in itself imposes a cost on me, and reduces the amount I buy. Some possible markers of fake reviews I look out for, completely anecdotal: - products that have high hundreds or thousands of reviews, with almost all 5's and a few 1's. - products with a large disparity between the Amazon reviews and sites that (I think) are much less likely to be targeted for fake reviews, e.g Walmart.com or bestbuy.com It should be no harder to figure out an algorithm to stop this than to stop spam email, which makes me think sites like Amazon are not really motivated to stop the practice.