Will meh sue for fake reviews?
11Look out all of you posters who say something is “meh” without really knowing. Amazon is suing 1,114 Individual Reviewers for posting false reviews. Earlier this year, they sued some websites that pay reviewers to post reviews for paying vendors.
Will meh follow suit?
- 4 comments, 14 replies
- Comment
Hey, I just posted a similar article over on the mothership.
http://deals.woot.com/questions/details/87133124-e3a8-406d-a7a2-fb5fd09d670a/amazon-is-suing-reviewers-who-post-reviews-for-pay
Dang, I could have been supplementing my income all along. Who knew?
ETA: Here's a new one I hadn't seen (from the article you posted, not the one I posted on Deals).
Amazon also alleges that third-party sellers ship empty boxes to paid reviewers, pretending that the item in question was inside.
Whoa. That's just sneaky.
@Shrdlu - brilliant minds . . .haha
I loved that they described how to avoid detection to a covert Amazon employee. Too funny.
I agree with your other post, many depend on those reviews, and it is gratifying that they are taking steps to keep them legit.
There are many sites that try to give tips on spotting fake reviews, but how often do we just look at the overall numbers?
@Shrdlu @KDemo hey we even got a question mark on ours without asking - great minds indeed.
@Shrdlu I've been "paid" with a free product, but I disclose in my review, and I also don't usually give 5 stars... or if I do the product deserved it... I did a review where the item was free and I think I gave it 2 stars cause it sucked ass... but it wasn't a complete waste... just for me it was.
@Shrdlu Other than your post, the last post on the Everything But Deals tab was 10 days ago.
I think our mother may have moved ships ;_;
@Chops Mostly what gets posted on Fresh gets downvoted (and it should be). Often it just sits there until it falls off, and that's that. Right now the only things on the Fresh tab are me, and two others, and those are legitimate (sort of) questions that in the old days would have already had a ton of answers, and would have hit the Popular tab.
Then again, I was moved over to the Everything But Deals tab not too long after I posted (which I expected, of course). I'll vanish from Fresh in about a week (give or take a day), and just exist on the Chat tab.
So it goes.
@snapster A question mark? I have no idea what you are referencing there...
@Shrdlu Amazon users have adopted eBay technology!?! The ol fake feedback scam. http://www.ebay.com/gds/NEW-EBAY-FEEDBACK-SCAM-watch-out-for-this-new-scam-/10000000001873326/g.html
@Pamtha Ah yes, no context there. So a few of us here at Meh designed deals.woot and the UI there wants your statement in the form of a question. Sometimes this was annoying and to sidestep it one would add a question mark to an otherwise clear statement. Rebellion! Shrdlu's post references her doing that there while KDemo asked an actual question to title this thread here.
@snapster Oh thanks! I was totally asking for a friend.....
I'll be much more cautious about how I hand out mehs from now on, just in case.
@KDemo @Shrdlu thanks - had not seen this. @Shrdlu, up voted your "question" over there. It was showing in the Fresh panel on the right side for me.
It does indeed require a cynical eye to discern fake/mercenary reviews.
Perhaps it hasn't quite reached the point where a product with zero reviews (an honest seller?) is as credible as one with 5-10 reviews, but still.
Since Amazon has access to a lot of internal data I wonder whether a reviewer credibility factor could be displayed next to every review? (useful/not only applies to that review)
Some kind of algorithm/index?
Potential Inputs:
Age of Username, number of reviews, average rating by reviewer, % of items bought directly from Amazon, number of reviews from an IP address to snag multiple accts (spoofing might blow this one, but would anyone bother?), % rated useful...
Where $ are involved, it becomes a cat and mouse/measures and counter-measures game.
An index that, unlike Deals.Woot, actually works. I've rarely visited over there for a year and still have a 92 rating.
@RedOak -Great idea. Perhaps more useful if they just used that info to weight the final total rating. They could provide the raw and weighted total ratings for the product.
@KDemo The smartasses over here would all have zeros.
@RedOak it's not that the deals.woot algorithm doesn't work; it's an actual peer ranked scoring system. Activity is so low there that the system can't demote you in favor of someone else
@snapster if there isn't enough activity then the algorithm doesn't work. It should be adjusted to work with lower activity. Or perhaps Amazon should acknowledge reality and shut down Deals.