Clickfarms & Amazon KIndle

[Paul Whybrow]

As Mark Twain (or Benjamin Disraeli) observed:

'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'

The unreliability of sales statistics is especially true with the Amazon Kindle store, whose sales charts have been infiltrated by scams run through Chinese clickfarms:

Scammers Break The Kindle Store

Considering how some people believe everything that they read on the Internet to be solid truth, such manipulation is disturbing—even if it is just a flash in the pan.

It's puzzling that Amazon can't do something to stop this fraud, but then again their driving force is making money. It's long been a source of discontent, that it's easy to buy counterfeit goods on Amazon.

Consider too, the recent fuss about third party sellers of books on Amazon:

SoA concerns over Amazon Marketplace trading | The Bookseller

As Gordon Gekko said in the film Wall Street: 'Greed is good.'

 

[AgentPete]

Yep, they've got a problem alright, which if not addressed will undermine the whole Kindle ecosphere. So they must address it.

Well spotted Paul, I've just forwarded this to some friends who may be able to bring more pressure to bear on it...

 

[Carol Rose]

Saw a lot about this on Facebook over the weekend. Why does it not even surprise me? *SIGH* Amazon is TOO big now and way too full of itself. No accountability for what they're doing to authors with their pricing schemes, their algorithms that no one can figure out, and the way they ignore issues like this one.

 

[James Marinero]

Thanks @Paul Whybrow - very illuminating and much along the same lines as happened with Google rankings. Google eventually beat the bandits. As someone said elsewhere, the NYT best seller list was also gamed by publishing houses in the good old days.

 

[Patricia D]

If there is something to be gained, people will game the system whatever the system may be. It's a sad commentary on human nature.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

This article examines how easy it is to game Amazon's self-publishing platform:

Amazon has laid out exactly how to game its self-publishing platform

It really is a seething nest of vipers!

 

[Howard]

This article examines how easy it is to game Amazon's self-publishing platform:

Amazon has laid out exactly how to game its self-publishing platform

It really is a seething nest of vipers!

Any electronic system can be gamed if it is not set up correctly, and Amazon are proving themselves to be little more than utterly incompetent of late. Everything they do, every service they provide, is just horrible now, and I, as someone who has used them for years for a host of services, am seriously considering leaving.
They are beaten for useless coding and poor customer service only by Google.