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Yes, I've seen articles where people who do this say there are a bunch of Facebook groups for exactly this purpose. Manufacturers/sellers ask people to buy the
by freeAgent 7y ago
Yes, I've seen articles where people who do this say there are a bunch of Facebook groups for exactly this purpose. Manufacturers/sellers ask people to buy their goods on the group and write good reviews. Once they get the proof of the purchase/review, they Paypal (or whatever) money to the "reviewer." I remember an article I read where some woman's house was overflowing with junk she didn't want because she was writing so many of these fake reviews. I would think Amazon could apply their awesome machine learning to figure out which accounts are pumping out these suspect reviews and perhaps de-prioritizing and maybe even rate limiting and delaying publishing of their reviews. I'd think that would do a lot to alleviate the problem.
- julianlam 7y agoIf you stand back and think about how these schemes operate, you wouldn't actually _need_ ML to solve it. Step 1 is getting a list of new products that are receiving a higher than expected number of 5-star reviews Step 2, add it to a list of similar products. Step 3, find accounts that all happen to purchase the same products in the same order. Step 4, ban accounts and sellers.
- sidlls 7y agoThat is a very simple algorithm! It’s also something the sort of people who do this will overcome relatively quickly. Automated or systemic attacks and mitigation is a war of escalation.
- martin_a 7y ago> If you stand back and think about how these schemes operate, you wouldn't actually _need_ ML to solve it. As Machine Learning is just a fancy way of doing statistics, you will totally not need it for this.
- luckylion 7y agostep 5: I now have a great way to boot competitors off of your marketplace.
- zadkey 7y ago"Step 1 is getting a list of new products that are receiving a higher than expected number of 5-star reviews" What is higher than the expected number of 5-star reviews? Don't those numbers vary widely depending on product category, brand, and newness of the product? How does that work for things that fit into more than 1 product category?
- julianlam 7y ago> What is higher than the expected number of 5-star reviews? That's left as an exercise for the reader ;) But you could simplify this to new products, which if ungamed, would probably follow a predictable curve of discovery, as opposed to a games "instant 5 star" rating.
- throwaway99191 7y agoLMAO no one is buying the "exercise" excuse. You tried to look smart and failed miserable. There are so many problems with your plan it's embarrassing.
- frandroid 7y agoYou can do all this manually, but really you just described a form of machine learning.