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Interesting that most of the reviews for Anker and Aukey products on Amazon have a variation of the same "I was provided with a free sample of this product in e

Interesting that most of the reviews for Anker and Aukey products on Amazon have a variation of the same "I was provided with a free sample of this product in exchange for my unbiased professional review."

coleca 11y ago
That seems to be the trend lately. Most of the reviews are polluted with this SPAM now. Amazon Vine is an AMZN sponsored program to enable this. I had a similar issue with a lightning cable purchased on Amazon that claimed to be a licensed Apple cable, but wasn't. I plugged it into a real Apple charger, went to plug the other end into my iPhone and sparks flew out of it as soon as it got close to the phone.
greedo 11y ago
How on earth do you think the tech review industry works? 99% of the reviews you've read utilize free gear provided by the vendor. Some publications have taken steps to curb potential excesses, but at least when I was freelancing (2000-2005), almost all writers were provided gear for free, and allowed to keep said gear. Ethical journalists can attempt to ignore the impact of gratis equipment, but it's difficult in the best of situations. Just as difficult as trying to ignore the impact of a "helpful" PR department. Apple was particularly good at this; I was provided with every version of the iPad for reviews. Once Apple got over their death march, this dried up, and dealing with their PR firm became tedious. HP provided notebooks, PDAs, anything, with no expectation or real system for returning equipment. The only vendors I ever dealt with that were strict about returns were Kodak/Canon with their DSLRs and lenses. These were normally around $10K or greater, so I was not surprised at all. Bias is implicit in any review where the publication isn't purchasing the items it reviews. I'm not sure how Sweethome and the Wirecutter work, though I know they make $$ off of purchase referrals through Amazon.
- wtallis 11y ago
  There's a big difference between giving review samples to journalists to review and publish on their own sites, and giving samples to be reviewed in bulk on Amazon in the same context of customer reviews and aggregated together with the same scores, with only a footnote of disclosure. Getting review samples isn't the problem; the reviews are just being published in the wrong manner. It's particularly inexcusable that the reviews solicited in this manner are eligible to be tagged as "verified purchaser" reviews.
  - greedo 11y ago
    The "Verified Purchaser" tag is just so that people know the reviewer actually received and ideally evaluated an actual unit, as opposed to a sockpuppet review. What's your issue with his review? He actually reviewed the actual units, compared them to the specs, and gave his professional opinion. All in a place where it can do the most good, as opposed to posted to some defunct Google blog.
    - wtallis 11y ago
      I think you lost track of the context. Benson Leung's reviews aren't the ones including the disclaimer; he probably is spending his own (or Google's) money to actually purchase the products. This is different from the astroturfing spammers whose reviews are tagged as "Verified Purchaser" but the text of the reviews shows that they didn't have to actually purchase the product. Those spam reviews are rarely anything but vacuous and are certainly not professional opinions in the same sense as Benson Leung's.

coleca 11y ago

That seems to be the trend lately. Most of the reviews are polluted with this SPAM now. Amazon Vine is an AMZN sponsored program to enable this. I had a similar issue with a lightning cable purchased on Amazon that claimed to be a licensed Apple cable, but wasn't. I plugged it into a real Apple charger, went to plug the other end into my iPhone and sparks flew out of it as soon as it got close to the phone.

greedo 11y ago

How on earth do you think the tech review industry works? 99% of the reviews you've read utilize free gear provided by the vendor. Some publications have taken steps to curb potential excesses, but at least when I was freelancing (2000-2005), almost all writers were provided gear for free, and allowed to keep said gear. Ethical journalists can attempt to ignore the impact of gratis equipment, but it's difficult in the best of situations. Just as difficult as trying to ignore the impact of a "helpful" PR department. Apple was particularly good at this; I was provided with every version of the iPad for reviews. Once Apple got over their death march, this dried up, and dealing with their PR firm became tedious. HP provided notebooks, PDAs, anything, with no expectation or real system for returning equipment. The only vendors I ever dealt with that were strict about returns were Kodak/Canon with their DSLRs and lenses. These were normally around $10K or greater, so I was not surprised at all. Bias is implicit in any review where the publication isn't purchasing the items it reviews. I'm not sure how Sweethome and the Wirecutter work, though I know they make $$ off of purchase referrals through Amazon.

wtallis 11y ago
There's a big difference between giving review samples to journalists to review and publish on their own sites, and giving samples to be reviewed in bulk on Amazon in the same context of customer reviews and aggregated together with the same scores, with only a footnote of disclosure. Getting review samples isn't the problem; the reviews are just being published in the wrong manner. It's particularly inexcusable that the reviews solicited in this manner are eligible to be tagged as "verified purchaser" reviews.
- greedo 11y ago
  The "Verified Purchaser" tag is just so that people know the reviewer actually received and ideally evaluated an actual unit, as opposed to a sockpuppet review. What's your issue with his review? He actually reviewed the actual units, compared them to the specs, and gave his professional opinion. All in a place where it can do the most good, as opposed to posted to some defunct Google blog.
  - wtallis 11y ago
    I think you lost track of the context. Benson Leung's reviews aren't the ones including the disclaimer; he probably is spending his own (or Google's) money to actually purchase the products. This is different from the astroturfing spammers whose reviews are tagged as "Verified Purchaser" but the text of the reviews shows that they didn't have to actually purchase the product. Those spam reviews are rarely anything but vacuous and are certainly not professional opinions in the same sense as Benson Leung's.