FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews

Re:FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews by makeitdouble on Thursday October 14, 2021 @12:52AM (#28860637)

It should be pointed out that current fake review issues are not just on fraudulent products.

For instance Aukey has been caught by Amazon, but in my experience their products were pretty good, and they probably played the fake review game mainly due to everyone else playing it, and it became an arms race.

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Re:FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews by qaq on Thursday October 14, 2021 @01:41AM (#28860856)

The cynical take Aukey was taken out because they had good products and good reputation in a high margin category that Amazon wanted for their house brand to play a bigger role in.

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Re:FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews by jonathankoren on Thursday October 14, 2021 @02:03AM (#28860979)

I would have called this conspiracy territory, but then it broke that Amazon was doing exactly that in India.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-i...

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Re:FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews by KajMagnus on Thursday October 14, 2021 @03:20AM (#28861429)

Does this indicate that by not fixing the fake reviews problem, Amazon can, whenever it wants, get rid of a troublesome competitor?

(since the competitors are sort of forced to use fake reviews)

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Re:FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews by makeitdouble on Thursday October 14, 2021 @04:23AM (#28861756)

I guess it's double bound:

- they can really fix it (e.g. by kicking every fake review mandator) and drown competiting products far below in the search results, leaving "Amazon's choice" ones at the top.

With way fewer reviews it will be harder to argue the ranking results legitimacy.

- they don't fix it, and as you say, get an excuse to kick any random brand trying to stay afloat on their platform.

Either way Amazon wins.

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Re:FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews by naim08 on Thursday October 14, 2021 @05:33AM (#28862112)

"Amazon's Choice" are also littered with fake reviews. WSJ did a story on this and looked at hundreds of "[AC]" listings and found majority of listings had fake reviews; many of the fake reviews being the top reviews.

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Re:FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews by HPsquared on Thursday October 14, 2021 @04:20AM (#28861738)

It's selective enforcement, in a different context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement

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Re:FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews by KajMagnus on Thursday October 14, 2021 @01:45PM (#28867502)

Thanks, interesting reading, and some from there linked topics as well

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Re:FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews by blfr on Thursday October 14, 2021 @03:36AM (#28861513)

I would have called this conspiracy territory

It is a conspiracy theory. Some of them are just true.

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Re:FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews by jonathankoren on Thursday October 14, 2021 @11:14AM (#28865430)

Touché

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Re:FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews by lepouet on Thursday October 14, 2021 @06:43AM (#28862582)

Today i was looking for a nice gan usb c charger, surprise, an AmazonBasics charger was one of the first result and the only recognizable brand.

And the first, promoted, comment/ratings is from a guy who received the product for free in exchange for a review.

https://www.amazon.fr/AmazonBasics-One-Port-Charger-Tablets-...

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Re:FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews by MomoXenosaga on Thursday October 14, 2021 @06:24AM (#28862434)

The whole advertising industry is an arms race.

Unless your product is so revolutionary or cheap you're gonna need marketing.

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