On Amazon, there are fake reviews that promise interested buyers a good product. Amazon has now deleted over 200 million of these false reviews, and there is no end in sight.
Reviews and ratings hold a high value for buyers. Because people report their experiences with the purchased product.
- Buyers tell what they like or why they bought a product.
- But they also report if there are problems or descriptions do not match the product.
Reviews therefore have an important significance in the Amazon cosmos. Because customer reviews seem more trustworthy than, for example, product descriptions from manufacturers who want to present their device positively or product images that might be altered.
Here lies the problem: Even fraudsters know that reviews have a high value and exploit this trustworthiness. They pay people to give their product a positive rating, even if the product has flaws and issues.
As early as May 2021, there was a major leak showing that more than 200,000 people were engaging in “unethical practices” on Amazon and deliberately deceiving customers (via safetydetectives.com).
Amazon sellers lure people with the offer of free products in exchange for a review. Some customers probably do not think about the far-reaching effects that fake reviews can have or that they might be violating Amazon’s terms of service.
Meanwhile, the fraudsters have also started publishing their fake reviews outside of Amazon. Especially social networks are popular here to advertise products. Amazon has now released a comprehensive statement on this.
Amazon deleted more than 200 million fake reviews in 2020
This is what happened: Amazon has now released a statement saying: We deleted 200 million fake reviews last year (via about.amazon.com). Many of these fake reviews are said to have never been seen by Amazon customers, but were detected by the system beforehand.
According to the statement, they have more than 300 million active users who shop on Amazon daily. 200 million fake reviews seem to be a significant blow against fraudsters targeting customer money.
Additionally, they want to combat further fake reviews:
- On one hand, they want to take further measures to stop fake reviews.
- Furthermore, they want to prevent the fraudsters from benefiting from such reviews at the expense of customers. For this purpose, they shut down the accounts of the fraudsters.
What about social networks? Amazon stated that they are tackling this with “a range of techniques, including advanced machine learning”, but it is much more difficult to combat such fake reviews outside of their own system.
How exactly this works was not detailed. However, the company made it clear that it cannot do it without other companies. After all, these providers are also responsible for allowing fraudsters to roam on their sites:
We need social media companies whose services are used to facilitate fake reviews to proactively invest in fraud and fake review controls, work with us to stop these bad actors, and help consumers shop with confidence.
Amazon (via about.amazon.com)
And this “cooperation” seems to be quite successful, according to the figures Amazon itself mentions:
- According to Amazon, in the first three months of 2020, they reported over 300 groups. Social media companies took an average of 45 days to respond.
- In the first three months of 2021, they reported over 1000 groups. Other companies took an average of 5 days to suspend these groups.
If Amazon develops an effective method to sensibly reduce the misuse of user reviews in the long term, it could also prove beneficial for other platforms and shops.
Not only Amazon has a problem with such reviews; other providers are also affected.
Other providers are also affected by such false reviews
The platform Steam has been combating the misuse of its own review system for some time. For example, Chinese players punished Warframe with bad reviews because they were unhappy with a decision by the developer. The game Monster Hunter: World also received many negative reviews due to the poor game adaptation.
What is review bombing? Such “review bombing” is now flagged by Steam for games and is no longer counted in the overall rating. This refers to reviews written en masse for a specific reason that have little to do with the actual game.
Additionally, another important site like Metacritic has now adjusted its review system to prevent the misuse of the review system.
