Amazon sues to block fake reviews

New Literary Agent: Laura Mamelok of Susanna Lea Associates

Writing and Failure

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Paul Whybrow

Full Member
Jun 20, 2015
Cornwall, UK
Amazon is trying to close down businesses that sell fake reviews of its merchandise, including books. We've all seen suspicious looking five star reviews on there, as well as Goodreads, which is owned by Amazon of course.

http://consumerist.com/2015/04/09/a...ies-from-selling-fraudulent-positive-reviews/

I think that the practise is common on any sales site that allows feedback from customers, including eBay. I bought a few cheap electrical accessories, for my bicycle and laptop this year. I noted that the lights and a USB fan were made in China, and were available from eBay traders there, but I chose to buy from U.K. sellers with good % feedback. All the same, they all failed within a few weeks - the bike headlight after turning it on and off once!

What was I going to do, when it would cost me as much in postage and packing to return them as they were to buy? I checked the feedback ratings again, noticing that many sellers stopped trading once they got negative comments, though a new firm with the same products sprang up in the same town.

I'm pleased that Amazon is doing something about their dodgy feedback ratings, and I wonder how other ebook sellers will tackle the problem.

There's one big thing that puzzles me about all of this though. Amazon can surveil users of Kindles, who have borrowed ebooks from the library, noting when the reader stopped reading and paying the author accordingly - as they announced recently, changing how writers are paid. Amazon keeps highly detailed records of their sales, which they use for such things as compiling charts. If they can do all of that, then why can't they tell if someone who is posting a review of a book has actually bought the blessed thing? Surely that would be one way of weeding out fraudulent and malicious reviews...
 
One reason they can't tell if someone bought it is they don't always buy it at Amazon. I have a lot of writer friends who ask for reviews everywhere if you've bought the book. If I can, I purchase books in-store, then will review on Goodreads, Amazon, and B&N if I can. Amazon would have no way to track that I bought that book from the store.

I think one way they could eliminate some of these issues is to ask a simple question about the book before publishing the review.
 
Well it is now an old story, where in some cases just following an author on social media might get your reviews blocked because 'you know' the author, when actually you don't. Hopefully they will get it right, but still not holding my breath on that one ;)
 
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New Literary Agent: Laura Mamelok of Susanna Lea Associates

Writing and Failure

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