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The Courts The Almighty Buck

Amazon Sues Admins From 10,000 Facebook Groups Over Fake Reviews (techcrunch.com) 31

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Amazon filed a lawsuit Monday against the administrators of more than 10,000 Facebook groups that coordinate cash or goods for buyers willing to post bogus product reviews. The global groups served to recruit would-be fake reviewers and operated in Amazon's online storefronts in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Japan and Italy. If 10,000 Facebook groups sounds like a lot, it's apparently the sum total of groups Amazon has reported to Facebook since 2020. The company notes that past legal action it's taken has been effective and "shut down multiple major review brokers," and yet here we are. They've been suing people for this stuff since all the way back in 2015.

The company named one group, "Amazon Product Review," which boasted more than 40,000 members until Facebook removed it earlier in 2022. That one evaded detection through the time-honored, AI-eluding strategy of swapping a few letters around in phrases that would get it busted. Amazon says that it will leverage the discovery process to "identify bad actors and remove fake reviews commissioned by these fraudsters that haven't already been detected by Amazon's advanced technology, expert investigators and continuous monitoring." The monitoring might be continuous but it's clear that thousands and thousands of illegitimate reviews push products across the online retailer's massive digital storefront every day, all around the world. And regulators are taking notice -- something that's bound to light a little fire under everyone's favorite online shopping monolith.

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Amazon Sues Admins From 10,000 Facebook Groups Over Fake Reviews

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  • Amazon (Score:5, Funny)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2022 @03:49PM (#62716906) Journal

    Are they also going to sue themselves?

  • Whack-a-mole (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2022 @03:55PM (#62716918) Homepage

    They'll just come up with some other way to do it.

    Most Amazon reviews are crap anyway:

    "Only 1 star because it arrived a day late"

    "5 stars - haven't plugged it in yet but it looks really good!"

    etc.

    • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

      That's not been my experience. There are sometimes crap reviews like that, but they usually get pushed out of sight as "not helpful". Those are the type that are at least easy to filter out unlike paid reviews which can look good.

    • Re:Whack-a-mole (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CubicleZombie ( 2590497 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2022 @04:12PM (#62716962)

      I try to leave helpful reviews, but I've been banned for life from writing reviews.

      "We apologize but Amazon has noticed some unusual reviewing activity on this account. As a result, all reviews submitted by this account have been removed and this account will no longer be able to contribute reviews and other content on Amazon."

      I submitted 4 or 5 reviews for stuff I paid money for.

      Not the slightest clue why and nobody will answer my emails.

      I guess they only allow reviews from bots.

      • Did you have an independent thought? Could someone infer from your writing that you know what you're talking about?

        Sometimes, the reason is simply that you make someone else feel uncomfortable about their lack of rational thinking ability.

      • Someone reported your reviews.

        • by sjames ( 1099 )

          Probably someone who was hoping for more stars...

        • Review censorship is the logical corollary to fake reviews. Blocking real reviews, especially for completely fraudulent or fly by night vendors, is a logical service for the "media optimization" companies.

      • Same thing happened to me about 5 years ago. All of the sudden I was no longer to leave reviews. Amazon stated something to the effect a company paid me for a review, which I have no idea that they are talking about. There is no appeal process either so whatever. It's around the time any way when the site started really going to shit, so I don't miss not being able to review. Since then I've only made a few purchases any how. Too many fake products and Chinese junk to wade through to care.
      • by antdude ( 79039 )

        https://www.amazon.com/gp/help... [amazon.com] perhaps?

      • I try to leave helpful reviews

        Well, there's there's problem...

        Genuinely informative, good review? Reported as "abuse" by the products competitors.

        Genuinely informative, bad review? Reported as "abuse" by the sellers sock puppet accounts.

    • Everything where a person shows a picture of the product just opened is a paid for review. The picture is part of the conditions for getting paid. Home Depot leans shamelessly hard on this and even tries to pass it off as an innocent way to get "reviews started" (ie. the seed program)

      Oh, and charging to import companies to show their own sites "reviews" (which are hopelessly moderated to 5 stars and bought). The whole review market is so systemically tainted, it makes me miss... 5 years ago?

    • All of my reviews seems to have to go through a human reviewer. I once spoke my mind and used a single naughty word - though I was correct just not polite.

    • by sjames ( 1099 )

      My favorite is 1 star: I ate the instructions before I read them and shoved it up my butt for some reason and now I can't get it to work. Very disappointing.

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      "5 stars - haven't plugged it in yet but it looks really good!"

      Rushed honeymoon?

  • Really are corporations capable of anything else? They're too large to actually have any coherent strategy.

    It's clear that Amazon will delete reviews calling out bad reviews because they don't want the impression of having fake reviews but they welcome the extra fees and transactions.

  • by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2022 @04:16PM (#62716968)

    Meanwhile, Amazon "affiliates" as they are often called, have fake review upon fake review espousing the virtues of whatever off-brand copy bullshit that'll break before it leaves the packaging as better than the name brand. And you *KNOW* these aren't the ones they're trying to take down. Search results on Amazon always result in several Amazon branded crap items before the actual item you're looking for. When do they deal with that problem?

    My guess is never, since it makes them money selling absolute dumpster-level garbage that'll just clog up landfills as people have to replace them almost as fast as they arrive.

  • They have millions of users. Flagging those that only review 5 or 1 star with drivel as explanation for their votes should be trivial. How about meta-modding just like /. does it, where other customers get to vote on the ratings? Give people discounts on "Amazon Basic" crap nobody buys and you'll have people BEG you to become your meta-mod squad.

    Or how about "verified reviewers"? C'mon, people have given up any semblance of privacy for less than having the coveted "Amazon verified reviewer" status. Of course, threaten them with third degree interrogation and the Spanish inquisition if they even think about becoming paid shills.

    Amazon would have quite a few tools in their quiver to ensure their reviews are genuine. Makes you wonder why they don't use them.

    • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2022 @06:16PM (#62717258) Homepage

      Or, how about limit each user to 1 review a week. Real reviewers aren't going to have a problem with a limit like that. Fake reviewers will, because they're trying to make money, and a limit like that will make it hard to make a profit.

      • Then they just create more fake accounts.

        • This could be controlled by cross-referencing credit card numbers. There's no reason there should be 1,000 accounts all using the same payment method. And yes, tie reviews to paying customers.

        • Which Amazon can check to see if it made any purchases.

          You yourself can check for the little golden "Verified Purchase" label.
          • They will have ordered the items they vote on, of course. That's not the problem, that only means that the recommendation cost the company the cut Amazon makes for the sale.

            • Just buying one item doesn't let you write a review. In fact, I've bought hundreds of items from amazon over decades and they still say I don't qualify to write a review because I don't spend some specified amount per month that I've forgotten on credit-card-funded amazon purchases (most of my purchases are with amazon gift credit).

  • ... it's clear that thousands and thousands of illegitimate reviews push products across the online retailer's massive digital storefront every day, all around the world.

    Sounds to me like "whine if they don't do anything about it, whine if they DO."

    Money is probably THE best motivator for people to break the law, the rules, or fair behavior in general. If you have one of the biggest markets, it's going to attract the most cheats. This surprises no one.

    It disappoints me to see someone trying to do the righ

  • Exactly what law did the fake reviewers break?
    • This is a great question-- and assuming there is one or one was passed, how would you even enforce it? Or prove it?

    • IANAL

      You don't have to break a law for someone to sue you, but the actions of these group admins seem like they constitute some form of fraud.

  • Why does AMZ allow non-buyers to write reviews? How does that even work? On the marketplace, if only buyers are allowed to review the products that they buy, the fake review issue would be significantly reduced. This also stops my predatory competitors from shitting on my product unless they purchase a product from me, which allows me the opportunity to sue if their review is unfair for the purpose of destroying my business.

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