America's Trade Commission Accused of 'Rewarding Bad Actors' Posting Fake Online Reviews (arstechnica.com) 18
Ars Technica quotes the CEO of a fraudulent-review tracking company who says that fake reviews online have now reached 'epidemic proportions". But two U.S. regulators say that's just the beginning:
Commissioners Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Slaughter of the Federal Trade Commission say it's about to get a lot worse, and they know who to blame: their own agency. The FTC this week brought its first case against a company for enlisting its employees in a coordinated fake-review campaign to boost sales. Chopra and Slaughter say the decision reached by their fellow commissioners could usher in even more review fraud. The settlement did not require the company to admit fault, notify customers of the fraud, or turn over any ill-gotten gains.
"Dishonest firms may come to conclude that posting fake reviews is a viable strategy, given the proposed outcome here," Chopra said in a statement dissenting from the FTC's decision, joined by Slaughter. "Honest firms, who are the biggest victims of this fraud, may be wondering if they are losing out by following the law. Consumers may come to lack confidence that reviews are truthful...." [T]he FTC voted 3â"2 to allow Sunday Riley to settle the charges by agreeing not to post future fake reviews, without admitting fault. Chopra and Slaughter say the settlement will ultimately do more harm than good and that it tells companies there's little risk in engaging in online review fraud; even if regulators find the fake reviews, the company won't face a meaningful punishment, the dissenters say.
FTC staffers told Ars Technica that it's extraordinarily rare for the FTC to get a fake-review case "as straightforward, prosecutable, and evidence-rich" as this one. The FTC's investigation began when an inside whistle-blower shared a company email on Reddit in which employees "were given step-by-step directions on how to post fake reviews" -- and on how to avoid detection.
"Dishonest firms may come to conclude that posting fake reviews is a viable strategy, given the proposed outcome here," Chopra said in a statement dissenting from the FTC's decision, joined by Slaughter. "Honest firms, who are the biggest victims of this fraud, may be wondering if they are losing out by following the law. Consumers may come to lack confidence that reviews are truthful...." [T]he FTC voted 3â"2 to allow Sunday Riley to settle the charges by agreeing not to post future fake reviews, without admitting fault. Chopra and Slaughter say the settlement will ultimately do more harm than good and that it tells companies there's little risk in engaging in online review fraud; even if regulators find the fake reviews, the company won't face a meaningful punishment, the dissenters say.
FTC staffers told Ars Technica that it's extraordinarily rare for the FTC to get a fake-review case "as straightforward, prosecutable, and evidence-rich" as this one. The FTC's investigation began when an inside whistle-blower shared a company email on Reddit in which employees "were given step-by-step directions on how to post fake reviews" -- and on how to avoid detection.
Isn't this like Slashdot? (Score:1)
Reviews on places like Amazon (Score:2)
are usually lies, The same goes for sites like yelp and it's ilk.
Newspaper reviews of restaurants seem to be less biased, if they're not hidden behind a pay-wall...
The moral of the story is to check as many separate, non-related sites and take everything you read with a grain (or pound) of salt...
Re:Reviews on places like Amazon (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why when I want to glean meaning from Amazon reviews, I look for bad ones, and ignore all the 4 or 5 star reviews completely.
I imagine that the next development in fake reviews will be bad reviews that make it seem like the product only has minor flaws, in an attempt to bury the honest bad reviews that describe the worst ones. For all I know some of that is happening already, but it's much harder to do well than writing fake positive reviews.
That doesn't work (Score:2)
This really is something the FTC needs to crack down on.
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't say they are worthless. Knowing that a product has a high DOA rate is useful info, because it tends to be indicative of bad quality control that can lead to other problems later in the product's life.
Re:That doesn't work (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually the level of purposeful incompetence by the FTC means corruption was involved to ensure no penalties. Those were not fake reviews, by law they were false advertising with all the legal penalties associated with that, there is not excuse for the FTC to so incompetently handle the case, straight up wire fraud and should have been prosecuted as such, TFC now corrupt as fuck.
Re: (Score:2)
Most fake reviews are obvious. I prioritize reviews written in correct English, and with more details which prove that at least they are related to the correct product. I'm sure I'm not infallible, but I suspect I do pretty well, as most of my Amazon purchases turn out fine.
Re: (Score:3)
I look for bad ones, and ignore all the 4 or 5 star reviews completely.
Many of the bad reviews are fake as well.
My daughter used to earn money by writing fake 5-star reviews on Amazon. She was asked several times to write fake 1-star reviews to disparage competitors. She always refused out of principle.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This doesn't work well when
1. the low reviews are fake
2. accurate low reviews are suppressed from public view
I recently noticed several of my 1 star reviews on Google maps and Amazon are only view-able to me. If you login using any other account they aren't seen. I've read their policies and cannot identify any violation. I've attempted to contact google through their community feedback forum to understand what I said that prompted the suppression. So far no one has been able to provide any reason for the s
Fake Amazon Reviews (Score:5, Informative)
I always get spammed by Chinese low-lifes looking to enlist me to review their crappy products. I've followed one of those from beginning to end and their particular trick is to garner lots of positive reviews for whatever inexpensive shit product they're pushing (inexpensive because they give it away), and then when it gets a high enough ranking, they swap it for a more expensive piece of shit product...which has positive reviews and positioning from the pumped product.
The Amazon Marketplace is a cesspool and these Chinese companies are some of the turds floating on top.
This is surprising? (Score:2)
With the current administration which believes they should be allowed to commit any crime they want, without consequence, who has repeatedly ignored crimes committed by private industry, who has one official who was recently held in civil contempt by the courts for refusing to follow the court's previous directive to cancel all student loan debts by people who were scammed by a fake university and instead continued to collect student loan debt, should the fact the FTC voted to not penalize blatant criminal
Consumers may come to lack ... (Score:2)
... confidence that reviews ...
That happened a long time ago.
I avoid Yelp because it's a bad joke. Amazon's reviews are seeded with seedy shit, too.
Ratings (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
"I know how reliable the places I shop at are. The only issues I've had were delivery delays. I can wait for a day or two for a package."
Are you crazy? Waiting 2 days for my new plastic vegetable-noodle-cutter?
The suspense would kill me.
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