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Technically, the pervasive Amazon counterfeit problem is unrelated to the fake review problem. Both are serious problems that Amazon does little to combat, but

Technically, the pervasive Amazon counterfeit problem is unrelated to the fake review problem. Both are serious problems that Amazon does little to combat, but they're not the same. The counterfeiting is more insidious because Amazon is entirely at fault for mixing legit merchandise with counterfeits. Fake reviews on the other hand aren't Amazon's fault. That's just the world being filled with heinous assholes out to make a buck by cheating, lying, and stealing from everyone else. At best Amazon could independently audit and review all products themselves. Actually if they did that I'd probably start buying from them again...

nkozyra 8y ago
> Actually if they did that I'd probably start buying from them again Not that it would inherently solve the problem or prevent pay for play, but it would be a great strategy for Amazon to have an independent review company. There are problems, though: 1. How do we trust that there's some objectivity, particularly as it relates to things that compete with Amazon products? 2. How could reviewers possibly cover any significant amount of the vast number of products Amazon sells?
- markdown 8y ago
  I'd bet a lot of the fake reviews would disappear if they just: 1. Limited users ability to post reviews to say, 3 per year and no more than 1 in any given month. 2. Limit users ability to post more than one review per vendor, per year. 3. Only allow reviews by verified purchasers.
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    I think they'd just put in 365000 fake accounts, and continue posting 1000 fake reviews a day
    - markdown 8y ago
      365,000 credit cards, 365,000 delivery addresses? If bots worked, they wouldn't have had to resort to real humans on Facebook to get reviews.
brilee 8y ago
Amazon absolutely has to deal with the fake review problem. In some ways, you can think of it as analogous to google search. Google's moneymaker isn't the search; it's the ads. But Google spends a lot of time fixing search quality and dealing with people gaming search results because otherwise the ad revenue disappears.
- angstrom 8y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if the actions Google took to push Amazon results off the first page product results skewed the Amazon product catalog towards gamed marketplace results. Amazon was getting a free ride on Google's results sort of like Wikipedia for a fairly long time. Now you have to dig to find links to either of them. The effect on Amazon may also be a result of pricing changes Google made around 2015.
  - BugsJustFindMe 8y ago
    I'm surprised to hear about this, as I frequently find myself having to explicitly -amazon -$ and other things to keep garbage product listings out of my google search results.
bewuethr 8y ago
Amazon kind of audits and reviews products, or at least has an official program for sellers to solicit user reviews: it's called Amazon Vine [0]. For the reviewers (the "Vine Voices"), it looks like this: on a regular basis, you can choose a product to review (based on your past reviews, purchasing history etc., maybe - they don't disclose how that works), and Amazon sends the product to you. Within one month, you have to post a review. You can post whatever review you want; to become a Vine Voice, you need a reasonably high reviewer ranking (mostly based on "helpful" votes: [1]). The reviews are labelled as written by a Vine Voice. As a side note, I know a Vine Voice, and they get emails from companies offering to reimburse them for a product in exchange for a five star reviews every few days. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help [1]: https://www.amazon.com/review/guidelines/top-reviewers.html/ https://www.amazon.com/review/guidelines/top-reviewers.html/
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  > As a side note, I know a Vine Voice, and they get emails from companies offering to reimburse them for a product in exchange for a five star reviews every few days. Amzn should pay extra for those. Then ban them:)
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  I don’t ever want to read any reviews by someone who gets free product, so if that’s how vine works, it’s broken by design.
  - entropy_ 8y ago
    Why though? If getting the product for free isn't contingent on you writing a positive review(only on writing one at all), why would it be broken?
    - BugsJustFindMe 8y ago
      The incentive structure can get seriously misaligned if you receive the product for free. You want to keep getting free products, which means that you want to make the person giving you the products happy. Amazon is giving you the products. Amazon is happy, or at least there is a common perception to that effect, if you rate things highly because then more people buy things from them. So you rate more highly so that you can keep receiving free products.

nkozyra 8y ago

> Actually if they did that I'd probably start buying from them again Not that it would inherently solve the problem or prevent pay for play, but it would be a great strategy for Amazon to have an independent review company. There are problems, though: 1. How do we trust that there's some objectivity, particularly as it relates to things that compete with Amazon products? 2. How could reviewers possibly cover any significant amount of the vast number of products Amazon sells?

markdown 8y ago
I'd bet a lot of the fake reviews would disappear if they just: 1. Limited users ability to post reviews to say, 3 per year and no more than 1 in any given month. 2. Limit users ability to post more than one review per vendor, per year. 3. Only allow reviews by verified purchasers.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  I think they'd just put in 365000 fake accounts, and continue posting 1000 fake reviews a day
  - markdown 8y ago
    365,000 credit cards, 365,000 delivery addresses? If bots worked, they wouldn't have had to resort to real humans on Facebook to get reviews.

brilee 8y ago

Amazon absolutely has to deal with the fake review problem. In some ways, you can think of it as analogous to google search. Google's moneymaker isn't the search; it's the ads. But Google spends a lot of time fixing search quality and dealing with people gaming search results because otherwise the ad revenue disappears.

angstrom 8y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if the actions Google took to push Amazon results off the first page product results skewed the Amazon product catalog towards gamed marketplace results. Amazon was getting a free ride on Google's results sort of like Wikipedia for a fairly long time. Now you have to dig to find links to either of them. The effect on Amazon may also be a result of pricing changes Google made around 2015.
- BugsJustFindMe 8y ago
  I'm surprised to hear about this, as I frequently find myself having to explicitly -amazon -$ and other things to keep garbage product listings out of my google search results.

bewuethr 8y ago

Amazon kind of audits and reviews products, or at least has an official program for sellers to solicit user reviews: it's called Amazon Vine [0]. For the reviewers (the "Vine Voices"), it looks like this: on a regular basis, you can choose a product to review (based on your past reviews, purchasing history etc., maybe - they don't disclose how that works), and Amazon sends the product to you. Within one month, you have to post a review. You can post whatever review you want; to become a Vine Voice, you need a reasonably high reviewer ranking (mostly based on "helpful" votes: [1]). The reviews are labelled as written by a Vine Voice. As a side note, I know a Vine Voice, and they get emails from companies offering to reimburse them for a product in exchange for a five star reviews every few days. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help [1]: https://www.amazon.com/review/guidelines/top-reviewers.html/ https://www.amazon.com/review/guidelines/top-reviewers.html/

yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
> As a side note, I know a Vine Voice, and they get emails from companies offering to reimburse them for a product in exchange for a five star reviews every few days. Amzn should pay extra for those. Then ban them:)
lawnchair_larry 8y ago
I don’t ever want to read any reviews by someone who gets free product, so if that’s how vine works, it’s broken by design.
- entropy_ 8y ago
  Why though? If getting the product for free isn't contingent on you writing a positive review(only on writing one at all), why would it be broken?
  - BugsJustFindMe 8y ago
    The incentive structure can get seriously misaligned if you receive the product for free. You want to keep getting free products, which means that you want to make the person giving you the products happy. Amazon is giving you the products. Amazon is happy, or at least there is a common perception to that effect, if you rate things highly because then more people buy things from them. So you rate more highly so that you can keep receiving free products.