After moving out, I left a pretty elaborate 1-star review in their Google profile. This triggered tons of very descriptive 1-star reviews, as customers were asked their opinion by a Google bot. After a few months, they were also deleted. Said company has been featured by Bucks newspapers as they bully locals that oppose their tactics to allocate land by bribing councils. I guess there's nothing like having aggressive solicitors.
I've literally had to stop using my airbnb account that had dozens of possitive reviews after a single bad review left in bad faith (owner privetly asked for money to remove it) meant that each new owner was hesitant about me and asking me specifically about that single comment.
I contacted airbnb support with proof of this and they said it can't be removed. Ive stopped using the service since then.
I think a good solution would be setting aside all owner-removed comments, concealed but available for review if someone clicks on them:
+ (124 comments removed by the author)
It is far more credible to believe that a loose association of similar tactics across a small number of large business entities might reasonably create a chilling effect upon speech.
An example; as a renter I have heard rumors of others who've left low reviews in public places and find it difficult to find willing renters in the future. I have no basis for this but the process of qualifying a renter is also opaque so I have no evidence to refute it either. It isn't unreasonable to think market forces could coincidentally cause various entities to reach a similar logical conclusion, or that an outsourced background check agency checks for various public posts that might be relevant to the rental agencies.
> Whether your summer plans include replacing your air conditioning, installing new flooring, or riding the range, you will probably read customer reviews to learn what people say about their experiences with a business or product. Shoppers benefit from knowing what others have to say, and the Consumer Review Fairness Act (CRFA) protects people’s ability to share their truthful experiences and opinions.
> The FTC enforces the CRFA and recently sued three businesses (and two of their owners) for violating that law. According to the FTC, the companies used form contracts that barred customers from sharing negative comments and that imposed financial penalties against customers who did so. Under proposed agreements with the FTC, the businesses — including an HVAC and electrical contractor, a flooring seller, and a company that takes people on horseback rides — will stop using, and will not enforce, those contract provisions. They will also inform people who signed the contracts that the provisions can't be enforced.
> The CRFA protects your ability to share your honest opinions about a business’s products, services, or conduct in any forum, including social media. You can publish your honest review even if you say something negative about a business or the services it performed for you. If you have a signed form contract that restricts you from sharing reviews or penalizes you for doing that, the business may not be able to enforce those restrictions. If a business tries to enforce a restriction or penalty, let the business know about the CRFA, and please report it to the FTC or your state consumer protection agency. [0]
[0] https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2019/05/your-right-post-ho...
The law can compel publication, but that power is typically used for material arising in judicial proceedings or documents of inherent public interest (like the Watergate tapes, etc.). So, it would be unlikely to apply here.
I've had Yelp and AirBnB remove reviews. I don't know what to do about it. They Yelp one I can't verify the service (a dentist) didn't get better. The AirBnB one I can tell nothing was fixed because the issues are verifiable in the listing itself.
https://thenextweb.com/syndication/2019/02/18/how-i-got-bann...
Wow, it get more and more evil the further I read down this thread. What a shitty, shitty companies are involved in all these shenanigans!
I met a person that rented the same horrific Airbnb I rented in Snoqualmie, WA. They were horrified too and wanted their money back. Airbnb said it was possible but they had to check with the owner. This was two years after my stay and after the host had been warned multiple times and had their superhost status stripped!
Now is that illegal? I sure don't know. Is it provable? That could be tough, too. But if someone asked me if it's legal to doctor reviews of products, I'd tell them to consult a very good lawyer or two.
Laws in the US can, and often do, require disclosure of certain factual information when publishing other information; this is particularly common in the context of commercial (and political) advertising.
The DMCA doesn't do that.
The DMCA allows a host to do that without liability for infringement, and continues to provide the host immunity to liability for any claims the user would otherwise have for the original takedown so long as they do that (the second half is the closest thing to force, but it usually is immaterial because hosts usually structure their contracts with users so that they would have no liability to them to immunize against, which is also why hosts are much more likely to provide reliable notice-takedown than counternotice-restorartion.)
No liability for taking down generally
[...]unless[...]
C) replaces the removed material and ceases disabling access to it not less than 10, nor more than 14, business days following receipt of the counter notice [...]
USC 512.g.2.c
Are you really asking how non-disparagement clauses can be legal?
Why wouldn't they be legal?
Sure, if there was a law against them, they'd be illegal. But why would there be a law against them?
> You can't put into a contract "if we kill you, we don't go to prison".
You could, but it would have no legal effect unless you represented the government that would be responsible for prosecuting that crime and had the authority to grant immunity for future crimes, but that's not so much a “law is above contract” thing as “contracts don't bind people, including the State, who aren't parties to the. contract” thing.
Goodhart's Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
Luckily Amazon will take back anything and they are eating massive return costs from me for not having working, non-gamed reviews.
The other trick that Amazon doesn't give a damn about is using the mechanism meant for different product colors and sizes to combine multiple products into a shared entry, which mixes all the reviews together and makes it basically impossible for the customer to see the score for each individual item.
As far as I can tell Amazon's only reaction was to start banning customers who returned too many products. I wonder why.
I've also seen 1 star reviews that are exalting reviews.
But my all time ongoing pet peeve is how recommendation engines especially on video streaming and video game series use numbers and star systems that are not based on any other human's input. Not a critic, not a user score, just an algorithm's confidence score on similarities.
It's like if Amazon built a guide map by walking up to people on the street and asking, "how do you get to the airport from here?" and writing down the response verbatim. A reasonable person would tend to respond, "I don't know" rather than ignoring a direct question asked of them.
If the product is good, but the shipping is not, buyers deserve to be informed.
If there are separate reviews for the product and the shipping of a product (still tied to that product, but also the shipping carrier that was used for that order) then a split review (one for each) is legitimate. Otherwise if there's only one review spot, EVERYTHING is on the table.
A bad review for the product due to one seller's shipping hurts all the other sellers too.
On the whole Amazon is good, but occasionally in the past it was poor, however there was no Avenue to raise that.
"hey this protective outer barrier did it's job, had a scratch on the shipping label, and successfully protected the contents. The contents were IN PERFECT CONDITION, 1 star review!!! CONSUMER RIGHTS!11!11!!1 REFUND NOW DAMAGED BOX"
The real weird part though; is how the outer packaging regardless of the quality of what is inside the box (their actual goods purchased) dominates their reviews. It's like a whole subculture, or something, I can't even begin to understand. The internet never ceases to to amaze me for the sheer breadth of absurdity one can find.
The list of these people is totally publicly available too, it would be great to just examine their world view to understand just who is actually wandering around out there.
There’s no way their pathology doesn’t bleed into how they impact life.
These are well-adjusted humans too. Just operating under a different set of criteria w.r.t. quality.
But a virtual/robotic girlfriend is pathetic to me. In almost any country if you told a female you had one, they'd think that too. In fact, it would likely remove any chance you had at dating them if you wanted to. That's reality.
What I referenced earlier is a real thing in Japan. And a concern to many, including the government.
"a study by the Japanese government showed there to be 500,000 hikikomori (shut-ins) aged 16 to 39. “The initial findings before 2000 were that it was mostly young people. However, we have seen a marked increase in hikikomori amongst middle-aged and old people,” he says." [1]
For such a populated island, the Japanese are very lonely. A lot has to do with the aging population of course. Loneliness is a sad thing.
"A whole industry also has sprung up to provide company to younger customers, primarily men, who aren’t having human relationships. (A 2013 study found that 30 percent of Japanese men in their 20s and 30s had never dated.) Gatebox has developed the anime-inspired VR-companion, tailored toward younger men who, due to long work hours or other reasons, prefer the company of a virtual partner." [1]
Separately, I'll add that I find it ridiculous that a sizable percentage of Australians don't wear shoes. Almost every animal over there wants to kill you. Why do they go shoeless in public? It's not a poor country. Has to be something else. Can you provide any insight?
[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/japan-loneliness-aging-robots...
Of course it is a problem that Amazon does not provide a way to separately report packaging and transport problems.
Anyway, the first several negative reviews read like this: "Are you seriously looking for a negative review? Come on! The game is amazing! Buy it!"
I hate the people who don't cast their vote to represent just their opinion, but rather try to get the score where they think it belongs.
" Absolutely amazing dont listen to the "gamers" that havent even played it yet and just love to get on a hate train. " (10)
" A fantastic game troubled by some technical issues. It's obvious that right now it doesn't deserve that 10/10 (with some patches tho? possible), but I'm still scoring it like that to counter all the review bombing GTA kiddies (more depth, rotfl) and trolls that haven't even seen the game. " (10)
The above from the most overhyped game of the year.
Published in 2007.
> I only played it this year
Portal is to a great extent a tech demo for its unprecedented "portal" rendering. This enabled some very 3D puzzles of a style that gamers hadn't seen before. Of course it's going to look a little pale in 2020, although you'd hope any original bugs were fixed.
"Portal is to a great extent a tech demo" (therefore it shouldn't be judged as a game)
Yet Portal is sold as a game in its own right. Riven was released in 1997 and is still a delightful intellectual challenge today, with nothing really like it. It's very much the opposite of modern games with a built-in GPS system telling you where to go. Riven is clunky, pixellated, but integrates good puzzles and a well thought out world in a way I haven't seen anywhere else. It was also a technical feat at the time.
Like I said in my Steam review, I believe Portal popularity comes from the fact it's a puzzle game attractive enough to draw people who don't play puzzle games.
Baba Is You is going to be a classic 20 years from now, despite its ugly graphics. In hands of anyone else, it would be just a gimmick, like Portal. But the idea was masterfully executed.
(personally I think Portal is a great game, but obviously it won't satisfy hardcore puzzle-solvers. however I don't think every game have to be about tricky puzzles)
I guess this is a sign of getting old and out of touch? or the presence of shills? I dont know but I know not to trust them
Certain movies attract a very narrow and enthusiastic, that will upvote the movie disproportionately (people not interested in the kind of movie will not even vote). A my little pony movie can get as good scores as the Godfather. Maybe it is, who knows.
I certainly do.
BTW, we're the ones who created these systems.
You can't separate the service part of the job from a company that offers services.
Some review systems offer breakdowns to separate these two components.
What is a star, really? I believe the concept comes from hotels, where there would absolutely be a star system with integrity where every score was possible. Now it's just theater to pretend your service allows consumer choice.
I imagine that food truck operator would do a lot better by simply asking "Like or hate our food? Leave an honest review on <site> for a discount"
If their food and service is good, they'll get the positive reviews they need
The only acceptable way to do it is "Please give us a review at [site]". No discounts or promotions.
I.e. your plan is doomed to fail.
Except maybe if you include a line like: "were not going to ask you for a 5 star review like others do, but reviews really make it break us and we're trying to be honest. Thanks for the support"
it will be a problem until the transaction is A-B with the merchant.
as long as there is a central entity between the two profiting somehow (yelp,google play, amazon, ebay, etc), it'll always be gamed like that, hoping the central party stays willfully blind to the gaming of the rules.
And the central party will stay willfully blind without legislation -- it affects their profits.
In any case it's import that people point out such bad practices. (One time I would have received a gift certificate for 30 $ for a product which costs 25 $. Crazy!)
From there it can become quite tempting to further affect review scores.
Yes the food truck’s request sucked, but without it they’d be out of business.
Every single game on the Google Play store does this now, too. Instead of just letting people review honestly, they show a pop-up saying "Are you enjoying this game?" if so, they ask you to review it on the store. If not, they ask you to review it via their own private feedback system. Not quite as bad as requiring a 5-star review, but obviously this alters the score the app would otherwise receive.