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Re:Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews by ortusdux on Thursday December 17, 2020 @05:58PM (#25461644)
I wonder if there is a way to fund and scale a service that uses a browser addon and separate database for reviews. People already use Honey for discounts, Keepa for historic pricing, and fakespot for fake reviews.
Re:Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews by AlexITC on Thursday December 17, 2020 @06:34PM (#25461922)
Having written several browser extensions, I have been thinking on building another one for people to comment on any website. Which ends up being useful for reviews.

And, while I like the idea, there are two main details preventing me from pursuing it:

- Moderating content provided by users is exhausting/costly. - I see no other way than ads to fund it, while it can potentially work as a paid app, it won't work until there is enough content (the chicken-egg problem).

Re:Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews by joshuaissac on Thursday December 17, 2020 @07:14PM (#25462256)
There was a similar add-on called Dissenter written by people associated with the American right-wing social network Gab, and it was banned from the Mozilla and Chrome add-on stores, citing policy violations.[1]

1. https://hub.packtpub.com/mozilla-and-google-chrome-refuse-to...

Re:Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews by AlexITC on Thursday December 17, 2020 @07:56PM (#25462527)
> When asked for more clarity on which policies Dissenter did not comply with, Mozilla said that they received abuse reports for this extension. It further added that the platform is being used for promoting violence, hate speech, and discrimination, but they failed to show any examples to add any credibility to their claims.

Wow, thanks for sharing the post.

Re:Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews by BlueTemplar on Friday December 18, 2020 @06:11AM (#25465973)
But then people can still install that plugin, can't they?
Re:Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews by gleenn on Thursday December 17, 2020 @06:47PM (#25462036)
I think a similar add-on went to court and was deemed illegal. Sorry, can't cite my source. I think it's a pretty common idea but falls flat quickly once you realize there isn't a reliable way to mass vet reviews
Re:Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews by Buttons840 on Thursday December 17, 2020 @06:55PM (#25462122)
We really need a source on that. Why is it illegal for software on my computer to show me information I want? I happen to want comments related to the site I'm viewing to be shown in a side pane.
Re:Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews by BlueTemplar on Friday December 18, 2020 @06:14AM (#25465985)
That doesn't make any sense, why would you be responsible for comments left by other people - unless you had editorial control?
Re:Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews by eins1234 on Friday December 18, 2020 @04:59PM (#25472593)
Sounds like the next one needs to be built on top of censorship resistant platforms like IPFS and/or Dat.
Re:Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews by shawnz on Thursday December 17, 2020 @09:56PM (#25463287)
I think the scope of that is too large to work well (based on seeing previous attempts at similar extensions).

Limiting the scope to just product reviews could make the idea a lot more feasible. Since you would be putting yourself directly in the purchasing path it might be easier to monetize the extension too.

Re:Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews by gowld on Thursday December 17, 2020 @06:46PM (#25462032)
How would you prevent review fraud?