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I wonder if they have any intention of going after Amazon - probably not.

MattGaiser 5y ago
I believe this is about businesses that commission those fake reviews. Amazon doesn't commission them. They just aren't effective at removing them.
i_like_apis 5y ago
It isn't really Amazon that does it though, it's the sellers on Amazon. Although it would be interesting if there were ever fake reviews on the Amazon branded products. (AFIK there aren't)
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  It benefits amazon to not do anything here, so they could be on notice for being complicit.
- vaseem 5y ago
  Amazon sent free products for reviews from customers, Amazon is the chief architect of Fake reviews
- sellyme 5y ago
  > It isn't really Amazon that does it though, it's the sellers on Amazon. If Amazon doesn't want the responsibility of having to make sure stuff on their website is actually legal, then maybe they shouldn't have made letting everyone sell stuff on their site their entire business model. They want all the profits of being a middleman but without taking any of the associated responsibility. It's a hilariously crap excuse.
sour-taste 5y ago
Amazon is listed as one of the companies receiving the notice, though as the list says that's not evidence that they've done anything wrong. Google, Pepsi, and others who are unlikely to be involved in this are there too https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/penalty-offenses-concerning-endorsements/list-recipients-endorsement-notice.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/penalty-offense...
- LurkingPenguin 5y ago
  > Google, Pepsi, and others who are unlikely to be involved in this are there too It's possible for big companies to "be involved" via third parties. For instance, Big Company pays Big Agency, who allocates some spend to Unscrupulous Digital Marketing Firm or Shady Digital Advertising Service. This doesn't mean that Big Company intentionally engaged in bad behavior but on the other hand, big companies tend to work with so many third parties that "hear no evil, see no evil" and plausible deniability are built in to their operations.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Those pesky rouge project managers are always a perfect scapegoat providing plausible deniability.
- gnabgib 5y ago
  This list is.. extensive, including tech darlings (Airbnb, Beats[Apple], Epic Games, Facebook, Lyft, Netflix, PayPal, Razer, Uber, WhatsApp(FB), YouTube(google)) too "big to fail" (3M, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Dell, Google, HP, Ikea, LG, LVHM, Microsoft, Walmart, Walt Disney), fast food (Applebee's, Arby's, Burger King, Dairy Queen, Domino's, Ferrero, Hershey, Kashi, Kellogg McDonald's, Kraft Heinz, Olive Garden, Pizza the hutt, Wendy's), covid vaccines (AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer). But also duplicates (AutoZone Parts/AutoZone Stores/AutoZone/Autozone.com, Best Buy Co/BestBuy.com, Big Lots Online/Big Lots Inc, Activision Blizzard/Activision Publihsing/Blizzard Entertainment, Cargill Meat Solutions/Cargill, many others). Shout out to Moderna for not making the list, and Gap Inc (Banana Republic, Old Navy) for getting all brands in.
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  > Google, Pepsi, and others who are unlikely to be involved in this are there too Bear in mind, this is not just about "fake reviews" like people submit on Amazon. This is about "falsely claiming an endorsement by a third party; misrepresenting whether an endorser is an actual, current, or recent user; using an endorsement to make deceptive performance claims; failing to disclose an unexpected material connection with an endorser; and misrepresenting that the experience of endorsers represents consumers’ typical or ordinary experience" I guarantee you both Google and Pepsi have committed offenses on that list, and so has nearly everyone else in modern marketing these days.
whoisjuan 5y ago
Section 230 protects Amazon from this. They could still go after Amazon if they believe Amazon is negligent in fake user review controls. On paper I think Amazon probably does a lot, but probably not enough.
- MrStonedOne 5y ago
  Section 230 stopped protecting amazon from this the moment amazon started taking down reviews that called out incentives. They are liable
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  This is not a rhetorical question. What more do you think they should be doing?
  - whoisjuan 5y ago
    They should probably build the right tech to detect fake reviews and dismantle fake reviewing rings. But this is not an opportunity of growth for Amazon. It is not a business critical area either and certainly is not perceived as meaningful threat or weakness. More aggressive investments in this area aren’t justified because it truly doesn’t have a clear effect on the bottom line. Reputationally, I doubt they care. Amazon has hundreds of thousands of vendors who sell up to 12 millions SKUs to hundreds of millions of customers. It just makes sense to invest in tools and programs for the hundreds of millions of legit interactions (including reviews) that happen on their platform, than focusing too heavily on those who are not playing by the rules.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      I'm not clear on whether the majority of fake reviews come from "fake review rings" that could be identified, or from what we might call "certain business practices" which could be extremely hard to detect. Do you have any sense of which one dominates?
  - tchalla 5y ago
AltruisticGapHN 5y ago
FWIW I find useful info in many reviews on Amazon. It's still better than everything else I've seen out there. It sucks to have to spend so much time trying to find the nuggets of honest info, but they are there.... unlike most non-Amazon sites I have had the misfortune to use in the past. On Amazon it's easy: if it's got hundreds of reviews, it's probably mostly fake reviews. Even for those products if you spend some time you'll find some nuggets of useful information in there. Contrast with some furniture site I went to some months ago, where there are only like 5 reviews per product and all of them are so completely fake. They assured me the desk was "very stable" which should have tipped me off already ... Later I noticed this "brand" is all over Amazon and each of their products has hundreds of positive reviews.. they are so easy to spot on Amazon... not so much on other sellers where they rebrand the product, have ten times less product info in the description, less photos etc.
- thom 5y ago
  The only useful reviews on Amazon in my experience are 1-star reviews. But the absence of 1-star reviews doesn't imply a good product, so I've frankly just stopped buying stuff from Amazon that isn't clearly a name brand and not replaceable by a counterfeit. The idea of trying to buy even something as simple as a cable on Amazon based on reviews fills me with dread.

I believe this is about businesses that commission those fake reviews. Amazon doesn't commission them. They just aren't effective at removing them.

i_like_apis 5y ago

It isn't really Amazon that does it though, it's the sellers on Amazon. Although it would be interesting if there were ever fake reviews on the Amazon branded products. (AFIK there aren't)

vineyardmike 5y ago
It benefits amazon to not do anything here, so they could be on notice for being complicit.
vaseem 5y ago
Amazon sent free products for reviews from customers, Amazon is the chief architect of Fake reviews
sellyme 5y ago
> It isn't really Amazon that does it though, it's the sellers on Amazon. If Amazon doesn't want the responsibility of having to make sure stuff on their website is actually legal, then maybe they shouldn't have made letting everyone sell stuff on their site their entire business model. They want all the profits of being a middleman but without taking any of the associated responsibility. It's a hilariously crap excuse.

sour-taste 5y ago

Amazon is listed as one of the companies receiving the notice, though as the list says that's not evidence that they've done anything wrong. Google, Pepsi, and others who are unlikely to be involved in this are there too https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/penalty-offenses-concerning-endorsements/list-recipients-endorsement-notice.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/penalty-offense...

LurkingPenguin 5y ago
> Google, Pepsi, and others who are unlikely to be involved in this are there too It's possible for big companies to "be involved" via third parties. For instance, Big Company pays Big Agency, who allocates some spend to Unscrupulous Digital Marketing Firm or Shady Digital Advertising Service. This doesn't mean that Big Company intentionally engaged in bad behavior but on the other hand, big companies tend to work with so many third parties that "hear no evil, see no evil" and plausible deniability are built in to their operations.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Those pesky rouge project managers are always a perfect scapegoat providing plausible deniability.
gnabgib 5y ago
This list is.. extensive, including tech darlings (Airbnb, Beats[Apple], Epic Games, Facebook, Lyft, Netflix, PayPal, Razer, Uber, WhatsApp(FB), YouTube(google)) too "big to fail" (3M, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Dell, Google, HP, Ikea, LG, LVHM, Microsoft, Walmart, Walt Disney), fast food (Applebee's, Arby's, Burger King, Dairy Queen, Domino's, Ferrero, Hershey, Kashi, Kellogg McDonald's, Kraft Heinz, Olive Garden, Pizza the hutt, Wendy's), covid vaccines (AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer). But also duplicates (AutoZone Parts/AutoZone Stores/AutoZone/Autozone.com, Best Buy Co/BestBuy.com, Big Lots Online/Big Lots Inc, Activision Blizzard/Activision Publihsing/Blizzard Entertainment, Cargill Meat Solutions/Cargill, many others). Shout out to Moderna for not making the list, and Gap Inc (Banana Republic, Old Navy) for getting all brands in.
ocdtrekkie 5y ago
> Google, Pepsi, and others who are unlikely to be involved in this are there too Bear in mind, this is not just about "fake reviews" like people submit on Amazon. This is about "falsely claiming an endorsement by a third party; misrepresenting whether an endorser is an actual, current, or recent user; using an endorsement to make deceptive performance claims; failing to disclose an unexpected material connection with an endorser; and misrepresenting that the experience of endorsers represents consumers’ typical or ordinary experience" I guarantee you both Google and Pepsi have committed offenses on that list, and so has nearly everyone else in modern marketing these days.

whoisjuan 5y ago

Section 230 protects Amazon from this. They could still go after Amazon if they believe Amazon is negligent in fake user review controls. On paper I think Amazon probably does a lot, but probably not enough.

MrStonedOne 5y ago
Section 230 stopped protecting amazon from this the moment amazon started taking down reviews that called out incentives. They are liable
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
This is not a rhetorical question. What more do you think they should be doing?
- whoisjuan 5y ago
  They should probably build the right tech to detect fake reviews and dismantle fake reviewing rings. But this is not an opportunity of growth for Amazon. It is not a business critical area either and certainly is not perceived as meaningful threat or weakness. More aggressive investments in this area aren’t justified because it truly doesn’t have a clear effect on the bottom line. Reputationally, I doubt they care. Amazon has hundreds of thousands of vendors who sell up to 12 millions SKUs to hundreds of millions of customers. It just makes sense to invest in tools and programs for the hundreds of millions of legit interactions (including reviews) that happen on their platform, than focusing too heavily on those who are not playing by the rules.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    I'm not clear on whether the majority of fake reviews come from "fake review rings" that could be identified, or from what we might call "certain business practices" which could be extremely hard to detect. Do you have any sense of which one dominates?
- tchalla 5y ago

AltruisticGapHN 5y ago

FWIW I find useful info in many reviews on Amazon. It's still better than everything else I've seen out there. It sucks to have to spend so much time trying to find the nuggets of honest info, but they are there.... unlike most non-Amazon sites I have had the misfortune to use in the past. On Amazon it's easy: if it's got hundreds of reviews, it's probably mostly fake reviews. Even for those products if you spend some time you'll find some nuggets of useful information in there. Contrast with some furniture site I went to some months ago, where there are only like 5 reviews per product and all of them are so completely fake. They assured me the desk was "very stable" which should have tipped me off already ... Later I noticed this "brand" is all over Amazon and each of their products has hundreds of positive reviews.. they are so easy to spot on Amazon... not so much on other sellers where they rebrand the product, have ten times less product info in the description, less photos etc.

thom 5y ago
The only useful reviews on Amazon in my experience are 1-star reviews. But the absence of 1-star reviews doesn't imply a good product, so I've frankly just stopped buying stuff from Amazon that isn't clearly a name brand and not replaceable by a counterfeit. The idea of trying to buy even something as simple as a cable on Amazon based on reviews fills me with dread.