Fake reviews are ruining the web. But there’s some new hope to fight them.
2023-07-0123:02598264www.washingtonpost.com
As much as 30 or 40 percent of online reviews are fake. Now the FTC is cracking down with new rules and hefty fines.
It’s the biggest step to date by the federal government to deter the insidious market for buying and selling fake reviews, though the FTC’s rules don’t do as much to hold big review sites like Yelp, Google, Tripadvisor and Amazon directly accountable. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. Interim chief executive Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.)
You’ve seen it before: Thousands of conspicuous five-star reviews for a borderline product. Perhaps even a merchant has offered to pay you to leave a positive review. This kind of fraud undermines our collective power as consumers. (Has a fake review wasted your time or money? Send me an email.)
“Anyone who’s done any shopping online knows that trying to actually get objective information about the product is so fraught because there’s so much commercial misinformation, so many deceptive reviews,” says Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
As many as 30 percent to 40 percent of online reviews are fabricated or otherwise not genuine, consumer advocacy groups and researchers like U.S. PIRG estimate, though the rate of fakes can vary widely by type of product and website.
There are global businesses dedicated to generating fake reviews for scammers and merchants looking for a shortcut. And the problem threatens to explode in an era of artificial intelligence like ChatGPT that can generate remarkably humanlike writing.
Yet the federal government’s approach to the problem has been to address it largely case by case through lawsuits — until now.
The FTC’s view is that fake reviews have always been against the law because they mislead consumers. But its proposed rules, which are open for two months of comment before they could be codified, would draw some bright red lines that clarify who’s responsible — and empower the FTC to take more action.
So what’s against the rules? No-gos include reviews that misrepresent someone’s experience with a product and that claim to be written by someone who doesn’t exist. Reviews also can’t be written by insiders like company employees without clear disclosures.
The rules apply not only to the people who write fake reviews, but also the middlemen who procure them and the companies who pay for them and know — or should have known — they were fake.
There are some gray zones. What if a business asks its real customers to leave them a review? The FTC tells me that’s still allowed because it’s a critical tool for small businesses to build an online reputation. The rules also don’t specifically forbid giving legitimate customers a gift card for leaving a review, so long as they’re not required to express a particular opinion — though it’s a good idea to disclose that if it’s a significant amount of money.
The rules also forbid a few more shady tactics such as review “hijacking.” That’s when a merchant takes a product listing page filled with legitimate reviews and swaps in a different product that those customers never actually used. (Earlier this year, the FTC made its first enforcement action for this practice, fining a supplement maker $600,000 for doing this on Amazon.)
A business can’t run a website that claims to host independent reviews while covertly selling its own products and services, something that happens a lot with tech products. A business also can’t suppress negative reviews, such as by using intimidation or legal threats.
“It’s really important to deter the practice up front, so that the people or businesses that engage in these practices know that they could face a really heavy price,” says the FTC’s Levin. In addition to the $50,000 per-case fine, the FTC would also have the ability to retrieve money directly for consumers harmed by the fakes.
So how are they going to enforce this? The FTC says codifying rules can help it be much more efficient in court — but it isn’t actually getting any additional enforcement resources. It could also still face hurdles trying to go after offending businesses that are based overseas, if they’re in countries that don’t have a history of working with the FTC.
Many consumer advocates say really fixing the problem requires addressing the entire fake-review economy.
For starters, Facebook, Twitter and other social media provide all-too-easy forums where companies can easily recruit and hire fake-review writers. Facebook has taken down some fake review groups, and Amazon last year sued leaders of more than 10,000 fake-review groups.
And most of all, review platforms and retailers such as Yelp, Google and Amazon have the ultimate control over what they publish on their sites, as well as the most information about who’s leaving the reviews. These big companies decide which reviews they leave up, what kind of proof they require to leave one — and also profit from having them.
Yet the FTC’s rules wouldn’t extend liability to either social media or review sites themselves, unless the companies are directly involved in procuring the fake reviews. There’s also no requirement for sites to verify a user’s identity or that they really used a product.
“Many of them assert immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act,” Levine says, a reference to the law that makes online forums not responsible for the content others publish on them. That would make it hard for the FTC to hold them accountable, even if it wanted to.
The companies claim they take it seriously: Amazon says it blocked more than 200 million suspected fake reviews in 2022, and Yelp says in 2022 its software identified 19 percent of reviews as “not recommended.”
“We applaud the FTC’s proposed ruling to take action against fake reviews and testimonials and plan to share further comments on the proposed rule,” Yelp General Counsel Aaron Schur said in a statement Friday.
Earlier this month, Google sued an individual and company who it says posted 350 fraudulent Google business profiles and tried to bolster them with more than 14,000 fake reviews.
The problem is even that’s not enough. “In any given day, I can … find thousands of fakes myself without any automation. That’s just me alone — one person,” says Kay Dean, who runs the organization Fake Review Watch. “They don’t have much incentive to self-police — there really are no repercussions.”
One idea: Review sites could be more transparent about when they’ve taken down fake reviews so that consumers and outside investigators can better track the activity. “We deserve more data and more transparency into what led to review content being displayed,” says Saoud Khalifah, founder of Fakespot, which uses AI to try to flag fake reviews.
The big review sites are running out of excuses. “Regardless of the liability regime, it is in the interests of consumers and the businesses that use these platforms for them to be policing this problem better. They have the most visibility into what’s happening, they are in the best position often to stop it, and we want them to be doing more,” says Levine.
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Comments
"As many as 30 percent to 40 percent of online reviews are fabricated or otherwise not genuine,"
LOL. Put a decent or at least nearly decent product on sale on Amazon. Accrue positive reviews. Switch product to pile of cac. Positive reviews sell pile of shite.
I do occasionally bother to leave a review for a product I have bought and I always specify it. Otherwise I am allowing Amazon to treat me and their other customers like a twat, which they do, with monotonous regularity.
It would be nice if Amazon didn't treat me and everyone else as twats. They will continue to manage to make more money than pure avarice in its wildest dreams could contemplate. You do have to wonder what on earth happens at a board meeting in these monsters.
By aaronbrethorst 2023-07-020:586 reply From the article:
The rules also forbid a few more shady tactics such as review “hijacking.” That’s when a merchant takes a product listing page filled with legitimate reviews and swaps in a different product that those customers never actually used. (Earlier this year, the FTC made its first enforcement action for this practice, fining a supplement maker $600,000 for doing this on Amazon.)
By spoonfeeder006 2023-07-021:326 reply Amazon could automatically include the name of the product in each review (but if they haven't done that already the probably don't care)
But how to automatically discount reviews that don't match the new product name, i.e. distinguishing from a major name change from a minor rephrase of the same product
Not sure how reliable ML is in that scenario
They don't care. In Poland we have a central internet marketplace much like Amazon. It's better to such an overwhelming extent that trying to use Amazon makes me feel sick in comparison.
Amazon feels like one of those fake garbage websites that sometimes SEO their way to the frontpage of search results. For a long time I seriously had no idea it was even a real store.
It's good but they are happily selling faked flash memory and sd cards and do nothing if you point that out.
By projektfu 2023-07-0212:47 They told me my review of a fake SD card was against the community rules, though they didn't say which rule. If only they spent a little of that effort blocking fakes.
Places that big tech was not interested in (eastern europe - poland, czechia, slovakia) actualy have competition and while its been condensing (allegro buying lots of competition) there are still many players.
Its funny amazon has major warehouses in poland and czechia (fulfillment to germany) but they dont even have czech store. You can buy from amazon.de and have it delivered to czechia but amazon doesnt compete on the market. They try with amazon.pl but i dont think its very popular. Lots of the other companies have things like pickup at physical stores (using packeta.com) or nonstop storage boxes that are everywhere in cities. Amazon would have hard time competing there so why bother.
It might show that amazon sttopped inventing in the space. I think its more likely that companies like that will start to successfully compete with amazon in germany. Then again amazon would probably just buy them if it was too threatening.
> They try with amazon.pl
The UX is overwhelmingly bad, shipping usually costs more than the free shipping threshold on allegro - it just has no value proposition.
> I think its more likely that companies like that will start to successfully compete with amazon in germany. Then again amazon would probably just buy them if it was too threatening.
Why do these companies even sell out to Amazon given how much higher their potential value proposition is? Without heavy antitrust monopoly bullshit, I can't imagine Amazon competing with anything that actually tries to be an usable service.
By neop1x 2023-07-0417:28 In Czechia we have Alza.cz and it works so well and is so well-established that Amazon has a hard time competing. For example I can order something 5 minutes before midnight on Saturday and it will be delivered the next day at 6 am to the AlzaBox automated box. If I don't like the thing, I can return it to the same box within 14 days and I get a refund fast. The website is well-categorized and easy to use and everyone knows the brand.
By wafflemaker 2023-07-0211:26 Remember illegaly selling Tibia in-game currency on Allegro. Think I was between 10 and 13 y old. Good old times.
Haven't used Allegro much since I've left the country. Heard that after they got bought by someone, they made some user hostile actions like greatly increased their comissions from each sale. Good to hear that. they are still strong and opposing Amazon.
Are you aware a portion of this functionality exists already, albeit implemented in a very dark pattern? Go to reviews and in the filtering options, select the variation of the product you're viewing and sort by newest. You'll be able to spot when they changed the product typically and then get a feel for how current product is being reviewed.
By Broken_Hippo 2023-07-027:53 You shouldn't have to. If you look at the reviews for product A, you should be getting reviews for product A. If they've updated product A, it is still product A and they can let you know that it was for an old version.
Google already does this for games and apps on their play store.
You shouldn't have to sort because companies are showing you reviews for product A, but you are looking at product B. These aren't even reviewing the same product. It is dishonest, and the consumer shouldn't be the one with the responsibility here.
By squarefoot 2023-07-0211:04 > Amazon could automatically include the name of the product in each review
And photos, the original listing ones before the user ones.
This wouldn't help for example with different revisions of the same product, but still would do wonders against sellers recycling say reviews of a cat litterbox to sell a pair of shoes.
> But how to automatically discount reviews that don't match the new product name
That could really work but the discount should be 100% on the seller, otherwise Amazon would have no incentives.
By mcbutterbunz 2023-07-022:333 reply Why not just disable product changes altogether?
By mildchalupa 2023-07-0211:521 reply In hardware all products are constantly changing.
Examples: A part gets obsoleted by vendor, sustaining engineering has to find a replacement. They conduct a small study to see how the new part works. The budget for conducting lengthy tests to determine if a simple change has any effect at the worst case tolerances is typically not there.
Suppliers quality changes over time. This is known as supplier quality fade. Suppliers will often underbid a part to win a contract. Then once volume ramps up they begin value engineering. Maybe they add more regrind material to an injection mold. Or they progressively begin to make the part slightly thinner on each subsequent batch. Maybe they begin to use a toxic filler material without notice.
An colleague literally had a situation in which a steel casting supplier was putting rocks in the castings.
Companies move injection mold tooling from vendor A to vendor B. The tooling might be the same but the settings are different, so the results are then different.
Without an excellent quality team that has money and time to check everything this will happen.
If you are competing in a marketplace with low margins there will never be enough money to check everything.
Perhaps part of a product, each supplier, and each changed spec should contribute to a unique fingeprint.
If you have a product which you keep calling FOO but has changed some spec in the new version (without hw change, perhaps you enabled some firmware option and now it can record 25 minutes instead of 20), it should get a new fingerprint. If it has changed a supplier for a chip, new fingerprint. And so on.
And aside from the fingerprint, you should also give all the entries that contributed to it (which when hashed in a structured function should give the same fingerprint), plus things like its production date.
Name="FOO", cpu.model="x-dragon-v5", cpu.supplier="Fukimata Japan", ..., fan.supplier="Fans-R-Us",...
Reviews then are tied to the product+fingerprint instead of just the product.
By vianneychevalie 2023-07-0222:25 I work in data management for large companies and I can promise you the problem is not a technical one. Which organization has the maturity to actually follow-through with quality data for such systems? Which legislators have the power to enforce such an approach?
How can you tell the difference between the same thing but updated packaging for the companies new brand from a whole new thing unrelated to the first? And in the grey area it is this years upgrades/version (is this still the same thing?)
Don't forget that it needs to be automated as Amazon is too big to do this manually. And whatever rules you come up with can't be gamed.by creative lawyers.
By pessimizer 2023-07-024:321 reply > Amazon is too big to do this manually.
Amazon is allowed to be smaller if it can't figure out how to do it profitably.
By AnthonyMouse 2023-07-025:443 reply Amazon is a company that makes a tiny amount of money a billion times a day. There is no sustainable way to increase costs without increasing prices. Regulatory overhead in competitive markets like retail gets paid for by customers, not corporations. It makes poor people have to pay more to buy stuff.
> There is no sustainable way to increase costs without increasing prices.
This is beyond ridiculous. Any company pulling in 3.2 billion in profit can easily increase costs without increasing prices just by accepting a little less profit. Hell, they could increase costs and lower prices and still be both highly profitable and sustainable by any sane definition of those words.
By AnthonyMouse 2023-07-026:143 reply Their net margin over the last year was 0.82%. That's the extent of how much costs could increase before they lose their entire profit, and companies are unsustainable well before that because they become worth more to sell off for their real estate and equipment than they are as an operating company.
You might also be interested in the proportion of the operating income they do make that comes from AWS rather than retail:
By heavyset_go 2023-07-028:152 reply That sounds like an Amazon problem, they are not entitled to profit from deceiving their customers.
> It makes poor people have to pay more to buy stuff.
Poor people aren't using Amazon because Amazon hasn't had the best prices online in years. You can get the same stuff for much cheaper on AliExpress or Walmart's retail and 3rd party marketplaces, or one of the dozens of other marketplaces online.
By throwaway14356 2023-07-0218:00 I sometimes run into it by accident then look at the ui and the prices in disbelief. Its always a joke by comparison.
Bling has this rather weird feature that allows you to search for similar (product) imaged, I don't know how often it works but iirc it displays prices under the similar (read the same) products.
I think eventually that might become a desirable standard. A platform, interested in the long game, wouldn't want to sell the same goods for 4 to 50 times the regular price. Just like brick stores use to guarantee the lowest price.
By AnthonyMouse 2023-07-065:36 You're describing places with even lower trust in the sellers than Amazon.
> It makes poor people have to pay more to buy stuff.
Sam Vimes' boots:
Poor people relying on a fake review are harmed by a greater proportion than are rich people who can afford to wait to send it back and get a refund.
Also, lemon market:
When the buyers can't tell if they're being ripped off, there is a death spiral of quality on the market as the price that consumers will bear has to assume the risk of lemons, but only lemons can be profitability sold at low prices.
By AnthonyMouse 2023-07-066:31 > Sam Vimes' boots
This is a silly economic theory. Rich people buy high quality goods that cost several times more money, often thousands of dollars as opposed to tens, for signaling reasons. Those products often are more durable, but not in proportion to how much more they cost. If a $1000 pair of boots lasts five times longer than a $50 pair of boots, you're still paying $750 more in the long run, and paying it as an up front cost, and taking a higher risk because anything that damages the high cost product is a bigger loss.
That isn't to say that you can never find a product which is such garbage that it costs more even though it costs less, but there is no reason to expect that to be the common case, and a big reason to expect the contrary: Sellers will try to charge more to people who can afford it even past the point that higher prices can cost-effectively improve quality, and rich people will pay those prices because they're less price-sensitive or more willing to pay for signaling.
> Poor people relying on a fake review are harmed by a greater proportion than are rich people who can afford to wait to send it back and get a refund.
You're making a proportionality argument here, but that's irrelevant. The question isn't what rich people do. It's if the amount it would cost to prevent fake reviews is more than the cost to ordinary people of them existing.
And the effect you're referring to only applies to a narrow range of products. If you order some paper towels and end up using napkins for a couple of days while they send some different ones, it's not a big deal. Conversely, if they send you an incompatible replacement battery for your device, you're stuck using the one that only lasts 15 minutes until you can get another one even if you make $100,000/year.
> When the buyers can't tell if they're being ripped off, there is a death spiral of quality on the market as the price that consumers will bear has to assume the risk of lemons, but only lemons can be profitability sold at low prices.
The assumption here is that Amazon reviews are the only means for people to evaluate quality. There are retailers that don't even have review systems and still don't become lemon markets because people can rely on third party reviews or brand reputation. And those systems are typically better because they're not tied to a retailer with a dominant market position, which improves competition in retail and routes around the perverse incentive of the retailer to host dishonest reviews.
There's a massive difference here between changing Widget v1 to Widget V2 and changing a pillow to an air conditioner. There are very simple things they could limit right now, like not allowing to change the listing category after N days without a review and hundreds of other things.
> as Amazon is too big to do this manually
Amazon allowed a guy to build a dick-rocket for a trip to space. They can hire a hundred people to review those requests. Don't worry about poor Amazon not coping.
I think even allowing changes from V1 to V2 while keeping reviews is pretty bad. It's not unheard of for hardware manufacturers to release a higher quality product initially and then "cost optimize" it to suck later. A good example is hard drives and SMR[1].
Why not allow linking back to the V1 version and its reviews from the V2 so shoppers can judge for themselves instead of having one take the place of the other?
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/caveat-emptor-smr-di...
By heavyset_go 2023-07-028:021 reply This is why I think a new listing per SKU requirement would be great.
You also see this happen with retailers, where manufacturers work with retailers to build exclusive cheaper versions of existing products that use those products' names and packaging. You end up with situation where the Walmart version of your specific product is actually different than the ones sold everywhere else.
By desmondfraser 2023-07-0721:31 [dead]
By nkrisc 2023-07-0211:06 > Don't forget that it needs to be automated as Amazon is too big to do this manually. And whatever rules you come up with can't be gamed.by creative lawyers.
That’s their problem if they allowed themselves to grow so big they can’t manage their own store.
If they can’t handle product updates, they shouldn’t allow it.
By justapassenger 2023-07-025:15 Make completely changing product against the rules, let customers report it and ban sellers if manual review proves report was correct.
Sprinkle some AI to it, and it becomes manageable.
By tornato7 2023-07-024:56 Amazon created mechanical turk which would be perfect for this sort of moderation.
By octacat 2023-07-0212:25 Easy, lol. Add into the rules "if it is a whole new thing and we see it from the user claims, your account goes bye-bye". But it is still profitable for Amazon to sell scam items, so they do nothing.
Also, yes, they could spend some time to review the updated pictures for the listings or make it a paid feature for the sellers. They could even use AI to compare descriptions and if USB-flash drive becomes 1TB SSD drive, they could flag that.
By heavyset_go 2023-07-028:00 A "new SKU means a new listing" rule should catch 99% of relevant cases.
Don't. Just dump all reviews upon any product change (at least by default). Everything goes into a secondary bucket of "Old reviews for a previous version of this product." With a clear notice that "product features or even core functions may be different".
They love money and fees. They can offer a review process to keep reviews for a new version once manually reviewed and confirmed as substantially the same product, perhaps with new images of new packaging.
By throwaway14356 2023-07-0218:05 you either have enough reviews that it is worth a substantial amount of money to preserve them or you just make a new listing. Change review pricing can also scale with the number of reviews.
By willis936 2023-07-0211:02 Important things change just as often as packaging. Switched the recipe? Burn the listing.
By charcircuit 2023-07-022:381 reply Because you may want to improve the picture, description, etc of a product. Not everyone can get everything perfect the first time.
The person is asking why you can change it to a completely different product that’s in a different category. Like changing a listing for socks to a listing for a monitor stand.
It is weird on Amazon marketplace. For our own product, for which we have trademark, registered in their brand registry, etc, we often can't make our changes reflect on a live product page. But then we see clearly highjacked product pages, like a 3d printed bracket for mounting GoPro on iris quadcopter I was selling many years ago to a USB cable.... Many in sellers community believe it is inside job, where current employees of Amazon with access to making changes to the product catalog making a side income from such shenanigans.
There were cases were Amazon's own product pages were hijacked like that in the past...
By edgineer 2023-07-024:17 I've seen it, both with wildly off reviews, and also in my historical orders.
Try browsing through your oldest Amazon orders--you may very well see something you didn't buy at those links now.
By heavyset_go 2023-07-028:06 Yes, and it's a feature that most marketplace platforms specifically build out because they profit from new products being sold with glowing reviews from older unrelated products.
This feature exists on Amazon, Etsy, eBay, etc.
By TedDoesntTalk 2023-07-024:36 Yes, you can sometimes read a review where the product is mentioned and it has nothing to do with the product you are looking at.
By AnthonyMouse 2023-07-025:471 reply Suppose you post a product initially and the listing is all messed up. Clearly the wrong dimensions etc. But some people buy it and it's a decent product so it gets good reviews. Now you notice the problems with the listing and want to correct them. Can you?
I wish we could get some kind of semantic versioning system for manufactured items.
By mytailorisrich 2023-07-0211:291 reply It's simpler: a listing and all the reviews attached to it ought to be for an unique and specific product. If the product changes then a brand new, clean listing should be created.
If this is not the case it's that Amazon does not care.
By octacat 2023-07-0212:13 They care. They still get their share from the sales, so they care to keep it like it is now.
Why is the FTC doing Amazons job for them? Fine Amazon until they fix this shit.
By superturkey650 2023-07-021:2510 reply How would Amazon generally know if a product has been switched out with an inferior product on the same listing?
Well the product title and pictures change, don't they? If your semantic meaning of the product change significantly and/or your images do, then it gets automatically flagged. Seems like not too difficult of a machine learning problem. Hell, you could do a lot of it without ML.
By superturkey650 2023-07-025:411 reply Ahh, I thought it was a case where they kept the listing the same but started changing the product to a lower quality version or knock-offs.
By 6510 2023-07-027:29 It would make sense to go after the seller for that but when the product is obviously changed it is much more effective to go after the platform.
Something simple like either you delete the reviews or you pay to have your changes reviewed. If it is important to you to change everything it must be worth something.
By onlyrealcuzzo 2023-07-0213:011 reply So drop shipping is illegal then?
By djur 2023-07-0215:24 Drop shipping from a huge number of barely-vetted vendors should be legally risky, yes.
By matheusmoreira 2023-07-022:341 reply They're worth like a trillion dollars. I'm sure they'll figure out that insurmountable problem.
By pixl97 2023-07-023:15 Heh, they're worth a trillion because they figured how to get you, the user, to do their work. Not because they spend the money they make.
By ClumsyPilot 2023-07-021:51 How could you possibly expect the mest technologocally advanced retsiler on earth, that has invesntwd cloud services and sells machine learning, to match the benchmark set for grandpa's old store, to be aware of what is it theybare selling?
Read it and review the change.
Just because something is difficult to automate doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
By AnthonyMouse 2023-07-025:591 reply > Just because something is difficult to automate doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
Sometimes it does mean that.
The number of updates to product listings is large and the proportion of updates that are scams is low. That means you need to be thorough enough to not have false positives or your false positives will outweigh actual scams by a big margin. Which means high cost per inspection. But then you have to apply the high cost inspection to all the updates that aren't scams.
It's completely plausible that the cost of doing this could exceed the cost of the scams, i.e. doing it isn't worth it.
To prevent this you need actual criminal penalties, because going to jail is a deterrent in a way that having your account closed when you can just turn around and sign up for another one is not.
By datavirtue 2023-07-0212:581 reply They are past the point of no return. By the time everyone realized what was going on the fraud was a critical portion of their revenue (silicon valley syndrome). The only things that could possibly stop this are competition that wins by not doing it, or government intervention (or Yellowstone blowing its top).
By AnthonyMouse 2023-07-0422:30 It doesn't really have anything to do with how long it's been going on. If having better reviews is a competitive advantage then they could do it themselves.
The problem is, there is no guarantee that it's worth more than it costs.
It’s weird that you can change a product after it’s been sold, and especially after it’s received reviews. The only reason I can think of is to keep your reviews.
Regardless, simply version the product on change and only show reviews for the current version would do the trick.
By datavirtue 2023-07-0213:00 But then you couldnt sell tons of knock-off crap.
By heavyset_go 2023-07-028:09 They built out and maintain the features that allow for this to happen. They also rake in an insane amount of revenue for allowing sellers to do this. It's part of their business model.
By firesteelrain 2023-07-0210:00 Version control. It can be as simple as “Updated version here”. In fact they already have that feature
By courseofaction 2023-07-021:43 By doing their jobs.
By squeaky-clean 2023-07-022:371 reply How would the FTC know?
By squeaky-clean 2023-07-059:49 Yeah, my question was more rhetorical though. Amazon could know for the same reasons. Except they make submitting any sort of complaint like that very difficult. If you want to report a review you can't even select a reason for why.
By cyanydeez 2023-07-021:26 You have an inflated idea what business jobs are without regulations
The rules should let them fine Amazon instead, this way law enforcement resources won't be spent going after every supplement seller that sets up shop somewhere...
By Broken_Hippo 2023-07-027:55 It shouldn't be an either or sort of situations - it is quite possible to go after both.
If you don't go after Amazon, the issue continues. If you don't go after the supplement seller, they rebrand and/or just start selling elsewhere and keep up their deceptive practices.
By barbariangrunge 2023-07-023:021 reply Why do anti-fraud laws not already cover this category of practices?
By behringer 2023-07-024:04 FTC rules are not laws. You are still criminally and civilly liable for any crimes you commit, in addition to the FTC fines.
By daveguy 2023-07-0221:29 This is good news. Shady tactics like these are rampant on Amazon, and I hope Amazon is held partially accountable. I get not wanting liability for third party discussion forums (eg reddit, isp, etc) because of freedom of speech. But when a good or service is literally being sold through the marketplace that marketplace should be held to higher standards than a discussion forum.
By coldtea 2023-07-0212:45 It can happen with the same product too. Just lower the quality and specs, but keep the name and outside appereance.
By heavyset_go 2023-07-027:571 reply > I do occasionally bother to leave a review for a product I have bought and I always specify it. Otherwise I am allowing Amazon to treat me and their other customers like a twat, which they do, with monotonous regularity.
Amazon banned me from leaving reviews years ago because I'd leave negative reviews when I had negative experiences with the products I bought. Turns out they don't like that, and it leaves me wondering how many bad reviews go unseen because they're blocked from being written in the first place.
By datavirtue 2023-07-0213:05 Sellers routinely ship large items in their original packaging. Things like air conditioners. Amazon does not allow any mention of shipping or packaging in the reviews. So consumers that continually receive damaged items can't warn other buyers about the high likelyhood of receiving the item damaged because it wasn't packaged properly. The seller knows they don't have to respond to complaints because of the enormous hurdle of sending the items back. The customers just bang the sheet metal back in place, replace any broken components, and install it to avoid anymore hassle (hey! We'll send you a new damaged one!).
Wouldn’t Amazon be trivially able to detect this when the weight / dimensions of the product completely changes?
Though I guess they don’t care because they get their cut. I don’t even think they pay for the returns as they’d pass that on to the seller.
By notfed 2023-07-0219:36 Seems trivial by simply showing a timeline of star ratings. I imagine Amazon is incentivized against such self-incrimination.
By DropInIn 2023-07-022:17 Just a note for those who didn't consider the following:
Theres likely plenty of businesses which have legitimately engaged and not pulled the switch, but you would still receive the counterfeit product due to the manner in which Amazon handles and fulfills orders (big bin of products from any vendor that labels thier product as X without any checking to validate it's legitimacy).
By AnonCoward42 2023-07-027:38 > I do occasionally bother to leave a review for a product I have bought and I always specify it.
Thank you! There is no way of knowing otherwise. This is also true for genuine listings where multiple versions are offered.
There is also a more general problem with this because this is also true for OEMs using the same name for fastly different products (i.e. router with different SoC, TVs with different panel technologies, SSDs with different controller and/or cache). And in that case it's just hard to even leave a proper review because you might not know that other versions exist and how to distinguish.
The issue is mostly the same and the intention is often also the same (but not necessarily).
Amazon typically shows the review date, which helps with that sort of thing. I usually pay more attention to more recent reviews when assessing an item's quality.
Also, just don't read five-star reviews. Whether fake or not, they won't contain any interesting information. The important insight is invariably in the "negative" one-to-four star range.
By gorbachev 2023-07-029:50 My Amazon shopping experience works like this.
Find products I'm interested in using their search. This is harder than it sounds, because Amazon's search is horrible.
Filter results by aggregate user ratings. Only consider anything 4.5 stars or higher. In rare cases when product is more niche or I know people have unrealistic expectations and leave reviews like: "coffee maker didn't brush my teeth, 1 star" I make an exception.
Filter remaining products by number of orders. Products with high aggregate rating and lots of orders are far more likely to be better.
Then after all that read a few of the negative reviews to see if there are any systemic flaws, e.g. poor hinges that give out quickly.
Then I pick the cheapest product out of the remaining ones. Usually...unless, like a good consumer, I'm addicted to a particular brand.
By daniel-cussen 2023-07-022:47 Worst is when they insult you by changing a legitimate name like "Polo" to the glaringly knock-off name "Pölo" after the fact, to manipulate users (this happened to me) into blame themselves for falling for such a blatant typo. Like i had to stoy using them entirely, n if they make huge piles of money, like at least they don't make that n a tiny additional amount from me. Like in many ways not crappy but very hit n miss, like too problematic.
Walk down a street market at night in Thailand and look at the warez on sale at the tables. Every single thing you see that looks like it's from a brand is counterfeit. Every movie or program is pirated. And the home utensils? Don't put those in the microwave, and definitely don't let your baby play with them.
I know we all think of Amazon as an American company that sells legitimate products like books, but why should we have thought it would be any different from a 2nd or 3rd world marketplace? There's no harm to it once you view it with the same level of suspicion that any average Thai person views the home goods sold on the street.
The only issue is that Americans aren't adapted to thinking critically about what they're being sold. They're adapting, and they will learn, because they're no longer a first world country.
TL;DR: It's not that you're being treated like a twat, it's that you actually are a twat if you're still trying to buy shit on Amazon.
By gerdesj 2023-07-0222:36 "Twat" is probably not something that a Yank would know they are being described as, let alone self-describing for a bit of a dramatic effect. I'm off of the UK.
I do find it comforting that a pretty niche en_GB insult has been swilled around the gobs of enough people on the planet, that it is recognisable to a Thailander (bit of an assumption). That implies to me that due to the power of the internet (anyone can talk to anyone) a lot of messages are transcending some huge boundaries. This one is a rather obscure and a rather juvenile insult, but I'm sure rather more positive messages get through too.
I should probably point out to anyone that doesn't know, that "twat" is a euphemism for female genitalia.
I will ask that you don't conflate all english speakers with the USofA, quite a few other countries speak english too as a first language. I don't take offence - they are starting to shape up quite well (bless). I'm also not too sure about trotting out the first -> third world thing is too useful these days - that's all a bit last century or earlier. I like to think we have moved on somewhat since then. However, if you think it is still a useful way to categorize parts of the planet - let's debate that.
I've increasingly wondered about counterfeit items not only from Amazon but in local stores. After someone left a tobacco vape pen at my house I decided to buy some of my own. I went to a couple local liquor stores and purchased some Elfbars. Apparently stores often ask that you sample it before leaving to make sure it works as they don't take returns. Okay. At both stores the clerk opened the box, removed the packaging and handed it to me... while throwing away the box. I realized that the boxes have holograms, QR codes and serial numbers to check authenticity. So, I bought another and asked to keep the box. Checked the QR, and sure enough it went to a dead website "e1fbar.com", obviously not legitimate. I entered the serial on the real website and it said it was not authentic, too. Word online is that a huge amount of these products are counterfeit - Elfbar says they have helped identify and shut down over 120 organizations selling fake products. So it makes me wonder, is everything else these store sell legitimate? What's to stop them from selling counterfeit liquor and cigarettes?
Hey, just from personal experience, don't smoke fake vapes. I ended up in the hospital with a golf ball sized ...thing... blocking my esophagus, which was initially thought to be cancer, and I was told I had 3 months to live, but it turned out to be a reaction to some shit in an unmarked vape from China. I lost a lot of weight. This was about 10 years ago when basically all vapes were sketchy and off-brand, and I thought it was a great idea to quit smoking and become an early adopter. I'm completely fine now and back to cigarettes. Seriously, don't inhale it if you have any doubts as to its origin.
Oh but like per your question... who's gonna defend anyone from an unscrupulous butcher selling someone cat meat, and stuff, Like, no one. That's how it is everywhere else in the world. Amazon is just a rampant zoo of it all in one place, exposing all this deadly garbage to naive first worlders for the first time... but it's just backwash.
By kwhitefoot 2023-07-0214:35 > who's gonna defend anyone from an unscrupulous butcher selling someone cat meat, and stuff, Like, no one. That's how it is everywhere else in the world.
What? Don't you have trading standards officers (UK) or something similar in your part of the world? Or something like Mattilsynet in Norway? These organizations are responsible for exactly that kind of policing.
By code_duck 2023-07-030:49 Oh, I was fairly offended that these stores happily sold me dangerous and fraudulent products. I certainly won't be doing that again.
Glad your problem turned out to be fairly benign, although I'm sure painful and worrisome! Who knows what they put into those products.
Customs and the FTC are the US agencies tasked with protecting consumers and the market from counterfeit products. I would imagine there are various national and local agencies for different types of products. It appears they could step up enforcement a bit.
By YurgenJurgensen 2023-07-0212:391 reply I don't smoke, but every shop I've walked past that was targeted at vapers looked like the shadiest place imaginable. They have the same feel as those cash-only nail bars or phone repair shops. All the furniture and branding looks as temporary as possible, like they know they're probably going to get shut down in a few months so they want to be able to close up shop and ship their assets out on short notice. And they always end up in those cursed retail units which rarely manage to keep a single identity for a full year.
By code_duck 2023-07-030:46 Vapes stores run the gamut. Some of them inherited their style from the classic head shop, which was basically as tacky as possible. The head shop scene has evolved from places selling pipes, bongs, rock posters, incense, psychadelia, sometimes porn and knives to include a type of store called a glass gallery, with higher end merchandise and a much more modern and classy sense of style. Some vape stores are actually quite nice, like one I went to in Eugene which had lounge chairs, tasting bar and was decorated like a fairly nice coffee shop. One that I go to here in Denver isn't as nice, but has a reasonably classy atmosphere compared to the type of store you describe. It likely depends on the area.
My experience with counterfeits was at average liquor stores though, not actual vape shops. 7-11 and other convenience stores also sell these disposable vape pens and from what I've gathered, most of the disposables are fraudulent. Supposedly dedicated vape stores are better about selling legitimate items, though I imagine it varies.
By jacquesm 2023-07-029:48 > You do have to wonder what on earth happens at a board meeting in these monsters.
'Dogma', board meeting scene.
By Waterluvian 2023-07-0213:16 Amazon engineers might be complacent and docile but they’re not incompetent. This could be fixed so easily if management willed it so.
>I do occasionally bother to leave a review for a product I have bought and I always specify it.
specify what? that you bought it?
By Bawoosette 2023-07-020:141 reply Presumably, they specify what the product was that they bought, in case the product listing is changed in the future.
By fsckboy 2023-07-022:47 ah, i gotcha
By Philip-J-Fry 2023-07-020:14 Probably exactly what they bought. So when the item gets switched for something different, it stands out more.
> If the rules are approved, they’ll carry a big stick: a fine of up to $50,000 for each fake review, for each time a consumer sees it.
Amazon may owe the FTC more money than the world's annual GDP.
By crazygringo 2023-07-0123:325 reply No it won't because Amazon doesn't write any fake reviews, to the best of our knowledge.
The article and rules make clear that this applies to the companies writing and submitting fraudulent reviews, not the platforms hosting them.
(If Amazon wrote a bunch of its own fake 5-star reviews for products under its own label, then this would apply in that case. But considering how many Amazon-brand products have terrible ratings, there's no reason to believe they've ever engaged in that practice.)
By thaumasiotes 2023-07-0123:561 reply The proposed rule prohibits disseminating or causing the dissemination of a testimonial... about the business or one of its [the business's] products or services (when the business knew or should have known that the testimonial was illegitimate).
That would catch Amazon if fake reviews were left on sold-by-Amazon products (and Amazon should have known that that was happening), but that seems unlikely unless Amazon is trying to violate the rule. Amazon disseminates a lot of fake reviews, even fake reviews that it has reason to believe are fake, but those are presumably not for Amazon's own products.
Amazon handles the customer interactions, the fulfillment at nearly every step (shipping, picking and packing, returns, etc), takes a cut per sale, etc etc etc
Under most reasonable definitions the seller of record should in fact be Amazon and not the person who amazon calls a seller....
As usual, corporations manipulate language to undermine government and citizen actions against thier misdeeds
By datavirtue 2023-07-0213:161 reply Yeah, the "seller" is actually a vendor that I have no business with.
By DropInIn 2023-07-0216:42 More aptly called suppliers imo
By 0cf8612b2e1e 2023-07-020:00 Mattresses make me wonder if, stupidly assuming the rule is enacted and enforced, there might be knock-on effects. TVs, mattresses, electronics, etc like to sell distinguishing SKUs to different platforms. That is, Target may get to sell the Sony 59" ABC123, but Walmart only ever gets the Sony 59" ABC456. Rendering it impossible to get stores to price match products from other marketplaces.
Big if, but if these rules go into effect, I wonder if maybe reviews being harder to solicit could result in more consolidation of model numbers to concentrate the review scores?
By comfypotato 2023-07-0213:13 Consumer Reports reviews mattresses. They do a decent-to-great job depending on the product. Shopping for anything they review is infinitely better than dealing with the hellscape of normal reviews.
By 0cf8612b2e1e 2023-07-0123:491 reply What are some of the poorly reviewed Amazon products? Anytime they show up (at the top of the search results, naturally), they are typically a high averaged score.
My prior assumption was that Amazon took a page from Walmart's playbook and would, ahem, borrow ideas for only the best/top-selling products.
By varenc 2023-07-021:32 I tried for awhile and the lowest rated items with more than 10 reviews where 3-stars. This 3-star listing has 30 reviews: https://www.amazon.com/low-rated-item-varenc-found/dp/B099Q6...
And here's a 1 star item but it only has 1 review: https://www.amazon.com/low-rated-item-varenc-found2/dp/B09Z6...
I'm guessing after you hit some number of reviews and the average is less than 3, Amazon doesn't let you list it anymore. Which is funny considering Amazon lets you filter search results on 1-star or 2-star items only and up. Seems like that filter option exists just to make you feel like the higher star ratings are more meaningful.
By Vanilla_Salt 2023-07-031:031 reply I would not be surprised if the majority of fake reviews are coming from offshore companies. Does the FTC have jurisdiction to fine those? Otherwise this changes nothing.
By mbrochh 2023-07-033:04 Bingo. This ruling will change absolutely nothing.
By parentheses 2023-07-021:40 It's possible we won't know unless there's a before and after review diff.
By partiallypro 2023-07-0123:402 reply A trick on Amazon, which I have no idea how it's allowed, is to create a listing for a product like detergent or soap, get tons of reviews that are 4.5 stars+ then change the listing to something else entirely, like supplements or anything. Something high margin that is being drop shipped. Suddenly all the reviews are mixed between this new product and the old one, but you have 4-5 people go in and create reviews for the new product the listing has been replaced with, and have accounts just mark those as the most helpful, so they rise to the top (most people don't go through more than 5-10 reviews.) It's such a scam. It's very common too.
This infuriates me and I know Amazon could fix this with like five minutes of trying on their part. It seems like such an obvious engineering fix that it must be intentional that it remains as-is.
By partiallypro 2023-07-022:042 reply Kinda like Amazon turns a blind eye to selling counterfeits and just outright stolen items.
By ClumsyPilot 2023-07-0213:55 They dont turn a blind eye, they directly profit by traking a vut from this fraud.
This is like claiming that a kingpin could shutdown crime on his street - why would he, he gets a cut
By onlyrealcuzzo 2023-07-0213:061 reply It's almost as if Amazon is inventivized to make money...
By hutzlibu 2023-07-0214:24 Yes and we have to set those incentivization right, so they don't see fraud as profitable anymore. Which is what this law is about and it comes way too late.
By thaumasiotes 2023-07-020:00 That is addressed by § 465.3, "Consumer Review Repurposing".
> It is an unfair or deceptive act or practice and a violation of this Rule for a business to use or repurpose a consumer review written or created for one product so that it appears to have been written or created for a substantially different product, or to cause such use or repurposing.
I once bought socks on Amazon, which came with a note saying they would send me a free item for a good review. I then got a free electric kettle with another card. Then I got lenses which attach to a phone camera, a carjack, a foldable lawn chair, but the a raclette cheese melter didn't come with another card.
Honestly, all fine products, nothing's broken etc. and I was very happy with such an amazing value for under $10. Werw they even fake reviews?
Were yours in particular fake? Maybe not. Does this cause people who might've given a four start review to bump it up to five? Probably. Does it mask the company later subbing in a cheapened, shittier version a few months later to float on the large number of five star reviews? Yes.
By thaumasiotes 2023-07-0123:581 reply > Does it mask the company later subbing in a cheapened, shittier version a few months later to float on the large number of five star reviews? Yes.
What does that have to do with the proposed rule? There is a rule against substituting in an unrelated product to get credit for reviews that were originally written for something else. Making a new batch of your product that is cheaper and worse than the old batch is allowed.
> The Federal Trade Commission proposed a new rule to stop marketers from using illicit review and endorsement practices such as using fake reviews, suppressing honest negative reviews, and paying for positive reviews, which deceive consumers looking for real feedback on a product or service and undercut honest businesses.
> Review Hijacking: Businesses would be prohibited from using or repurposing a consumer review written for one product so that it appears to have been written for a substantially different product. The FTC recently brought its first review hijacking enforcement action.
The scenario is explicitly part of the new rule, even if you'd otherwise have given it a five star review.
They're not giving you free products just for fun. One of the reasons is to get hundreds or thousands of good reviews
By thaumasiotes 2023-07-020:031 reply The scenario is not part of the new rule. Review Hijacking refers to transferring reviews from one product to an unrelated product, not transferring reviews from one product to the same product assembled on a different manufacturing line. The new version of the product may be obviously worse, but it is not a substantially different product.
By ceejayoz 2023-07-020:07 I've seen products get shitty enough in a subsequent production run to easily qualify as "substantially different".
The parent poster describes a chain of six free products. They're clearly not doing this as a charity exercise.
By ytdytvhxgydvhh 2023-07-021:361 reply The last time I got one of those cards I wrote a 1-star review of the product for that reason. Amazon refused to publish the review citing their policy that product reviews aren’t meant to be reviews of the seller (even in this case when the seller is also the manufacturer and doing shady review manipulation). Sellers only play those games because Amazon is on their side.
By taurath 2023-07-028:37 And the process of “reviewing the seller” (IE reporting them for bribing you) is made extremely difficult by Amazon. It’s nice that Amazon has gotten the government to enforce policy for them in their platform, it must be a lot cheaper to pay lobbyists than to make their platform work.
By rvba 2023-07-029:12 Oh you got a "car jack" not a "carjack". I wondered how did you rate it..
Wait... $50,000 per number of page view not per number of review? That's insane. How the FTC would know the number of times each customer saw it?
A good starting lower bound would be the number of purchases after the fraudulent review had been left. If Amazon gets control of the content they host, they really don't have much to worry about.
By qup 2023-07-022:45 Only if it was displayed. A shitton of reviews never show.
And thats just considering the reviews where they straight up admit they got the product free for a five star
By VWWHFSfQ 2023-07-0123:29 i dont think that's considered a fake review. useless, yes.
By indymike 2023-07-027:53 This will not survive the courts. Damages are unconscionable.
By fiddlerwoaroof 2023-07-0123:35 As far as I can see the site itself is mostly immune (Amazon, etc.). The fine applies to actors that solicit fake reviews.
By rahimnathwani 2023-07-021:493 reply @dang Please consider changing the URL from this WaPo article to the original source:
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/06/...
"Federal Trade Commission Announces Proposed Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials"
By dredmorbius 2023-07-022:201 reply FYI, "@dang" is a no-op: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36526450>
To reach moderators, send email to hn@ycombintor.com
Reference this post by URL or ID (36556228) in the subject line for faster processing, and the alternate URL you're suggesting in the body of your email along with a brief rationale, e.g., "link disambiguation".
I usually do this myself, though in this case arguably WaPo are adding relevant commentary and analysis. That said the direct FTC link is useful to have in this thread.
By dredmorbius 2023-07-0215:081 reply I'm trying to understand: sending an email is "a crazy amount of work"?
What is your proposed alternative?
How would that impact upon HN's own operations and resource demands?
There could be a simple reporting function with a click of a button, type what's needed, then admin checks these reports from a simple page and take action. Way faster than sending an email from an email client, then opening it in another client, then going back to the website, login, check that specific issue with the copy/pasted links because it is in the email not in the reporting system.
This is not 1990. All forum platforms have this function. (bb, vbulletin, discourse, etc.) I can't even understand why this is being discussed. :)
It seems to a good barrier for not to overload mods. Only who really want to report send email to mod.
By dredmorbius 2023-07-0315:22 Some thoughts on this:
- There's already a click-based interaction mechanism, the "flag" link. That's non-specific ("here be problems"), but also means that any type of issue can be reported with only a single mechanism and reporting flow.
- Yes, a more complex workflow for issue reporting could be constructed. Those ... tend to be complicated, not be especially useful, often omit the specific concern the reporter has in mind, and if overly arduous, result in people simply selecting the first option and moving on. Such systems can also become ossified and/or brittle over time, where an email-based system is inherently flexible and adaptable.
- Reporting links can also be abused by bots, web scrapers, and the rest, which means limiting them to registered members, and perhaps a subset of those (as is the case with HN's "flag" link). Email is the Universal Reporting Mechanism as I've noted in another comment on this thread.
- Email is sufficiently non-structured to address a wide range of issues. The one standardisation I've been asked to provide is to include the specific item ID in the subject of the email. This lets mods pull up the item directly using macros written for that purpose. I suspect that often the issue is reasonably apparent on doing so.
- I make extreme efforts to keep my standard-issue emails brief, clearly identify the post and source link, and suggest a remedy, all in consideration of moderator time. I suspect many other frequent reporters do likewise. Mods do respond typically within an hour to a day, and will often fix issues well before responding.
By dredmorbius 2023-07-0315:14 No.
Moderator time is a capacity limitation: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725>
Throwing more messages (not necessarily signal) onto the queue likely won't help that. Keep in mind that spurious or abusive reports are frequent characteristics of such systems.
Who precisely is being "gatekept" through a reliance on email? Even this highly-pseudonymous space alien cat replying to you now manages to get through that particular hurdle, and in fact, anyone, whether they have an HN account or not, who does have an email account (much of the online public) can at least in theory reach HN mods.
So, say, if you happen to be some third party who's being affected, abused, misrepresented, etc., on HN, it's possible to reach moderators directly with no further site interactions required.
Contrast with virtually all online ticketing or contact systems which otherwise mandate a site-specific account or profile.
By lolinder 2023-07-023:01 The press release was already submitted and discussed yesterday:
FTC announces proposed rule banning fake reviews and testimonials (211 points, 84 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36542500
By owenfi 2023-07-024:02 > Company Controlled Review Websites
Doesn’t this section make it contradictory for Amazon to sell their own products or would this section only apply to dedicated review/opinion websites?
