9 ms·

> Not all of these fake reviews are one stars – some give five star or other highly rated ratings. The catch with these highly rated reviews is many of them are

> Not all of these fake reviews are one stars – some give five star or other highly rated ratings. The catch with these highly rated reviews is many of them are created to give the false appearance that they were written by Tomlinson to raise his own Goodreads ratings, spoofing his name and photo and sometimes even using his own copyrighted writings. Wow, that's devious. I wonder if any of the fake product reviews I've seen are obvious fake endorsements placed there by the competition.

degenerate 7y ago
This problem isn't one born with the internet. Think about all those "WE BUY HOUSES 4 CASH" signs you see at stop lights. Why can't the city simply look up the phone number on them and convict the business owner for breaking advertisement laws? Because there is no proof he put the sign there. It could be the competition trying to frame him! Thus, the signs are simply thrown out... and he can put new ones out tomorrow.
- munk-a 7y ago
  At the same time, if that sign pops up four weeks in a row and is taken down four times - I should hope the city allocates a bit of labour to actually figure out who is doing it. And that's the answer that GR doesn't want to hear - clear patterns of abuse are apparent and they need to allocate more manual labour into moderation - automatic moderation can get pretty decent accuracy, but there's always a grey zone where you need some manual review - as much as we shrink that zone I don't think we'll ever make it disappear.
  - r_singh 7y ago
    This is where phone verification comes to use, because a user can be tracked back to their phone number which can be tracked back to a real person.
- burundi_coffee 7y ago
  "Hello, I saw a sign that says you buy houses for cash, can I set up a meeting?" "Yes, when are you available?" > Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Surely can't be that hard to find out if the business owner set up that sign, right?
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    INB4 people complain that this is "entrapment"
  - drharby 7y ago
    Circumstantial. Go watch Zodiac to get an idea of how circumstantial evidence is insufficient
    - tzs 7y ago
      That's a common misconception. See [1] for more. [1] https://www.dummies.com/education/science/forensics/direct-versus-circumstantial-evidence/ https://www.dummies.com/education/science/forensics/direct-v...
      - drharby 7y ago
        Huh - TIL
  - agrajag 7y ago
    A valid defense would just be that there was at least one legitimate advertisement that they saw. Just because one sign is illegal doesn’t mean they all are.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    Let's say you buy houses for cash and I put up a sign with your number on it. The police call you and find out that you do, indeed, buy houses for cash. They throw you in jail and I snicker, knowing that by breaking the advertising law myself but with your name I have put you out of business. While I'm at it, I leave your business card at the scene of a heist.
- baxtr 7y ago
  This reminds me of a related point: Almost always when I find of the "We will buy your car" cards on my car's windshield I wonder what to do with the card. I don't want to litter the streets, at the same time I never asked for the stupid card. To this day, I am still not clear what is -from a morale standpoint- the right thing to do.
  - 9dev 7y ago
    You just put it in the nearest trash can.
  - therealx 7y ago
    I think the answer is obvious: a trash can or recycle bin. It's clear this could turn into a DDoS by them, but thankfully they havent thought like that. I'd prob backfire advertising wise anyway.
    - narag 7y ago
      Less obvious since I found out that my city's council taxes those cards. When the rain turns the usual dozen of flyers into a plaster that harden later with the sun, it takes a few minutes to clean at best.
      - velosol 7y ago
        File a police report for vandalism by the company?
        narag 7y ago
        Vandalism? So illegal activities are now taxed instead of fined? Not that I find more logical that the council rents my car to those companies as an advertisement medium. But there's zero chance that report would be taken seriously.
        velosol 7y ago
        I understood your previous comment that you're already in a situation where it's taxed; I was thinking of someway to have it cost the advertising company money even if it only serves to have them put out the flyers on sunny days. I was thinking more as tool for insurance and/or attempting to force the company to pay for the cost of an exterior detailing of your car since they plastered something to it (with the help of the weather). In many US areas there are online police reports for minor incidents and the purpose of the report is almost solely so that you have a record for insurance. It may also help if you call up the company (or publicly shame them with a tweet) to ask for reimbursement for the cost of a car detailer to remove their litter from your car without damage. Having a police report means you could put it all in the hands of your insurance company who have lawyers on staff or use it as part of the negotiation with the company. Maybe enough police reports about a given company and you could petition the council to revoke that company's ability to flyer any longer? I know I'm probably dreaming that it would make a difference. The only time I've had an experience with this a friend used twitter and got a public apology from the company along with some monetary compensation around the removal of the ink residue from the windshield.
- CommieBobDole 7y ago
  I always assumed that the companies behind "we buy houses 4 cash" ads did exactly that - bought houses quickly and on cash terms at far below the market value from people who are in some sort of bad situation and would agree to a lousy deal in exchange for money now. Is that not what they do? Do they do something illegal instead?
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    The advertising signs placed on public property are illegal.
    - CommieBobDole 7y ago
      Well, yeah, but the parent post talks about the police calling the number on the sign and using that to get a conviction, so I assumed that some sort of other crime was being committed, like maybe they steal the caller's bank info or sign them up for some scam service. The reason the police don't do what the parent says is not because of difficulties with attribution of the act, it's because they care so little about the offense that they're not going to expend even the slightest effort to prosecute it. If they saw someone putting out signs, they might tell them to stop. Maybe.
- sb057 7y ago
  Similarly, a person can't be held (directly) legally responsible for receiving illicit material via postal service (at least in the United States). Otherwise, you could simply ship drugs to their home address and get them charged with any number of crimes.
  - int_19h 7y ago
    However, a person can be legally raided for the purposes of recovering said drugs, even if they have no idea that they possess them after picking the package up. Furthermore, even if the police has advance knowledge of the package and could have intercepted it earlier, they can still allow delivery and follow up with the raid, just so that they can take the recipient into custody. One prominent example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor%27s_residence_drug_raid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor...
TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
I have heard (but don't have personal experience of etc) that there is a similar tactic for “negative SEO”. Often people try to spam links to their own site to boost PageRank, leading to Google etc picking up on this and ranking websites worse for it, leading to people spamming links to competitors' sites so Google will penalise them.
- yellow_lead 7y ago
  This is a thing and it can be combatted by "disavowing" links through Google webmaster tools somehow, I believe. Of course that doesn't work for other search engines though.
- oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
  Wouldn’t that problem disappear if google just ignored spam links rather than penalising them?

degenerate 7y ago

This problem isn't one born with the internet. Think about all those "WE BUY HOUSES 4 CASH" signs you see at stop lights. Why can't the city simply look up the phone number on them and convict the business owner for breaking advertisement laws? Because there is no proof he put the sign there. It could be the competition trying to frame him! Thus, the signs are simply thrown out... and he can put new ones out tomorrow.

munk-a 7y ago
At the same time, if that sign pops up four weeks in a row and is taken down four times - I should hope the city allocates a bit of labour to actually figure out who is doing it. And that's the answer that GR doesn't want to hear - clear patterns of abuse are apparent and they need to allocate more manual labour into moderation - automatic moderation can get pretty decent accuracy, but there's always a grey zone where you need some manual review - as much as we shrink that zone I don't think we'll ever make it disappear.
- r_singh 7y ago
  This is where phone verification comes to use, because a user can be tracked back to their phone number which can be tracked back to a real person.
burundi_coffee 7y ago
"Hello, I saw a sign that says you buy houses for cash, can I set up a meeting?" "Yes, when are you available?" > Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Surely can't be that hard to find out if the business owner set up that sign, right?
- microcolonel 7y ago
  INB4 people complain that this is "entrapment"
- drharby 7y ago
  Circumstantial. Go watch Zodiac to get an idea of how circumstantial evidence is insufficient
  - tzs 7y ago
    That's a common misconception. See [1] for more. [1] https://www.dummies.com/education/science/forensics/direct-versus-circumstantial-evidence/ https://www.dummies.com/education/science/forensics/direct-v...
    - drharby 7y ago
      Huh - TIL
- agrajag 7y ago
  A valid defense would just be that there was at least one legitimate advertisement that they saw. Just because one sign is illegal doesn’t mean they all are.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Let's say you buy houses for cash and I put up a sign with your number on it. The police call you and find out that you do, indeed, buy houses for cash. They throw you in jail and I snicker, knowing that by breaking the advertising law myself but with your name I have put you out of business. While I'm at it, I leave your business card at the scene of a heist.
baxtr 7y ago
This reminds me of a related point: Almost always when I find of the "We will buy your car" cards on my car's windshield I wonder what to do with the card. I don't want to litter the streets, at the same time I never asked for the stupid card. To this day, I am still not clear what is -from a morale standpoint- the right thing to do.
- 9dev 7y ago
  You just put it in the nearest trash can.
- therealx 7y ago
  I think the answer is obvious: a trash can or recycle bin. It's clear this could turn into a DDoS by them, but thankfully they havent thought like that. I'd prob backfire advertising wise anyway.
  - narag 7y ago
    Less obvious since I found out that my city's council taxes those cards. When the rain turns the usual dozen of flyers into a plaster that harden later with the sun, it takes a few minutes to clean at best.
    - velosol 7y ago
      File a police report for vandalism by the company?
      - narag 7y ago
        Vandalism? So illegal activities are now taxed instead of fined? Not that I find more logical that the council rents my car to those companies as an advertisement medium. But there's zero chance that report would be taken seriously.
        velosol 7y ago
        I understood your previous comment that you're already in a situation where it's taxed; I was thinking of someway to have it cost the advertising company money even if it only serves to have them put out the flyers on sunny days. I was thinking more as tool for insurance and/or attempting to force the company to pay for the cost of an exterior detailing of your car since they plastered something to it (with the help of the weather). In many US areas there are online police reports for minor incidents and the purpose of the report is almost solely so that you have a record for insurance. It may also help if you call up the company (or publicly shame them with a tweet) to ask for reimbursement for the cost of a car detailer to remove their litter from your car without damage. Having a police report means you could put it all in the hands of your insurance company who have lawyers on staff or use it as part of the negotiation with the company. Maybe enough police reports about a given company and you could petition the council to revoke that company's ability to flyer any longer? I know I'm probably dreaming that it would make a difference. The only time I've had an experience with this a friend used twitter and got a public apology from the company along with some monetary compensation around the removal of the ink residue from the windshield.
CommieBobDole 7y ago
I always assumed that the companies behind "we buy houses 4 cash" ads did exactly that - bought houses quickly and on cash terms at far below the market value from people who are in some sort of bad situation and would agree to a lousy deal in exchange for money now. Is that not what they do? Do they do something illegal instead?
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  The advertising signs placed on public property are illegal.
  - CommieBobDole 7y ago
    Well, yeah, but the parent post talks about the police calling the number on the sign and using that to get a conviction, so I assumed that some sort of other crime was being committed, like maybe they steal the caller's bank info or sign them up for some scam service. The reason the police don't do what the parent says is not because of difficulties with attribution of the act, it's because they care so little about the offense that they're not going to expend even the slightest effort to prosecute it. If they saw someone putting out signs, they might tell them to stop. Maybe.
sb057 7y ago
Similarly, a person can't be held (directly) legally responsible for receiving illicit material via postal service (at least in the United States). Otherwise, you could simply ship drugs to their home address and get them charged with any number of crimes.
- int_19h 7y ago
  However, a person can be legally raided for the purposes of recovering said drugs, even if they have no idea that they possess them after picking the package up. Furthermore, even if the police has advance knowledge of the package and could have intercepted it earlier, they can still allow delivery and follow up with the raid, just so that they can take the recipient into custody. One prominent example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor%27s_residence_drug_raid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor...

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago

I have heard (but don't have personal experience of etc) that there is a similar tactic for “negative SEO”. Often people try to spam links to their own site to boost PageRank, leading to Google etc picking up on this and ranking websites worse for it, leading to people spamming links to competitors' sites so Google will penalise them.

yellow_lead 7y ago
This is a thing and it can be combatted by "disavowing" links through Google webmaster tools somehow, I believe. Of course that doesn't work for other search engines though.
oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
Wouldn’t that problem disappear if google just ignored spam links rather than penalising them?