Amazon Is Data Mining Reviewers’ Personal Relationships

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This lady seems pretty upset with Amazon but, as customers, how do you feel about this?

“We cannot post your Customer Review… to the Amazon website because your account activity indicates that you know the author,” explained the response from the company. “Customer Reviews are meant to give customers unbiased product feedback from fellow shoppers. Because our goal is to provide Customer Reviews that help customers make informed purchase decisions, any reviews that could be viewed as advertising, promotional, or misleading will not be posted.”
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Seems to me like they need to remove the obviously 99.9% fake reviews for pretty much everything on their site before even contemplating trying to determine if a buyer personally knows the seller.
 
Why is it so important that her review is posted? Does Amazon reward people for reviews? For people clicking "like" on your reviews (or helpful or whatever it is on Amazon)?

Or... is she trying to help a friend, or is she being paid by the publisher or author to post her reviews?

If none of the above, then she should just shrug her shoulders and move on.
 
WHA!!! A big company that makes its money from knowing its users, so it can sell them stuff they think they will like is data mining? Why I never! No ... wait, what are we surprised by here? Honestly, I am more surprised that Amazon even tries to keep its reviews legit.
 
cyclone3d said:
Seems to me like they need to remove the obviously 99.9% fake reviews for pretty much everything on their site before even contemplating trying to determine if a buyer personally knows the seller.
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Its not that high, but yes there's that and also paid reviews.

I keep getting sent free merchandise I already bought to review. Its obviously just a bribe, and as long as I keep the history of good reviews going, I get more free stuff. Even when you post the disclosure that you got it for free to review, cmon. Any seller offering such a service, which Amazon itself encourages, should be banned.
 
cyclone3d said:
Seems to me like they need to remove the obviously 99.9% fake reviews for pretty much everything on their site before even contemplating trying to determine if a buyer personally knows the seller.
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And maybe the should learn how to make water without hydrogen and oxygen while they are at it.
 
EODetroit said:
Why is it so important that her review is posted? Does Amazon reward people for reviews?
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If enough people find your reviews helpful you can become a product tester (vine reviewer) and receive free stuff.
Rest of your post I agree with entirely.
 
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Wrench said:
If enough people find your reviews helpful you can become a product tester (vine reviewer) and receive free stuff.
Rest of your post I agree with entirely.
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*Positive* reviews helpful. Amazon doesn't want negative reviews, because they reduce their sales volume. Paid reviews are the reason I stopped listening to mainstream reviewers entirely, and here Amazon is doing the same thing. Vine review = throw in garbage.
 
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Ducman69 said:
*Positive* reviews helpful. Amazon doesn't want negative reviews, because they reduce their sales volume. Paid reviews are the reason I stopped listening to mainstream reviewers entirely, and here Amazon is doing the same thing. Vine review = throw in garbage.
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I love negative reviews. One or two? They may be bitter or just got a shitty thing. Lots? I'll buy something else, and it'll probably cost more.
 
EODetroit said:
Why is it so important that her review is posted? Does Amazon reward people for reviews? For people clicking "like" on your reviews (or helpful or whatever it is on Amazon)?

Or... is she trying to help a friend, or is she being paid by the publisher or author to post her reviews?

If none of the above, then she should just shrug her shoulders and move on.
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The last 5 years is all about outrage at being told no.
IM ENTITLED TO _____________... no you are not.

Outrage at people being shot by the police.
LEARN THE FUCKING LAW BEFORE COMMENTING.

Outrage at people being racist on their own time.
ITS PROTECTED BY THE CONSTITUTION.

Outrage at people not being outraged by your own utter lack of fucking intelligence.

This will continue now that social media allows people to voice OPINIONS, and based on the number of followers, those opinions mean more than the fucking law of the land.

Welcome to stupid-ville, population over 250 million, and growing quicker than a rat infestation in the NYC subway.
 
SS_Wehrwolf said:
Outrage at people being racist on their own time.
ITS PROTECTED BY THE CONSTITUTION.
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To which your response is to be outraged at peoples outrage that is protected in the same manner and by the same constitution as the racism that you are outraged with them being outraged about? Pot, meet Kettle.

This will continue now that social media allows people to voice OPINIONS, and based on the number of followers, those opinions mean more than the fucking law of the land.
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In what manner is this happening? Can you give a specific example? I am genuinely curious.
 
They pull her review and yet the 1 star review on my android game that reads, "I wanted to download AlphaBetty but I kept ending up download this game. I didn't want this game, I wanted AlphaBetty." is still perfectly ok.

BTW never release a game and put it on Amazon, they are bloody thieves. I made $30 in sales in May. And when they go to pay me in June, $30 gets dropped to $14 for some reason, no idea why, that's way more than the 30% cut they're supposed to take. But then with withhold 30% of that for taxes and tell me that they're only going to pay me $9. I check my bank account, and they actually only paid me $5. So I went on their forums to complain and it's just full of people complaining about similar issues. So don't do it.
 
This just happened to me last week when I bought a co-workers product and tried to review it. No one had reviewed their stuff so I decided to do one and was rejected for the same reason. We believed it was due to having shipped items to a same address at some point in time (to my place of employment).

I don't really think they are deep data mining, it likely is a simple script that checks locations.
 
cyclone3d said:
Seems to me like they need to remove the obviously 99.9% fake reviews for pretty much everything on their site before even contemplating trying to determine if a buyer personally knows the seller.
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This.

Can't say how many times there are reviews from accounts with only 1-5 reviews giving glowing reviews to products from just one seller/manufacturer.

It would be awesome if there were an algorithm to sort out reviews like the and not display them.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041715393 said:
This.

Can't say how many times there are reviews from accounts with only 1-5 reviews giving glowing reviews to products from just one seller/manufacturer.

It would be awesome if there were an algorithm to sort out reviews like the and not display them.
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What annoys me are the reviews from people who have not purchased the product from amazon as well as the answered questions with "I don't know..."
 
jpm100 said:
And maybe the should learn how to make water without hydrogen and oxygen while they are at it.
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True, some fake reviews are going to make their way in no matter what, but they can do a better job at policing them to avoid as many fake ones as possible.


For instance:
1.) Don't display reviews from reviewers until they have reviewed at least 30 products, from at least 10 different manufacturers, brands and sellers. Until they satisfy these requirements, keep the reviews hidden, and don't count them into averages.

2.) Hide reviews downvoted by enough users, and remove their impact from averages. In order to avoid abuse (trying to remove poor reviews of your own product) only allow qualified reviewers, per #1 to rate reviews.

3.) If a reviewers reviews are continuously downvoted, suspend their reviewing rights.

4.) make all sellers sign a contract in which they agree to not post fake reviews or in any other way influence the sales of their prodicts without disclosing their financial interest in the sale. Have a section that states if they are found to violate this clause, they pay a large fine, and their selling account is suspended permanently.

Some will still slip through, but the above ought to vastly improve things.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041715655 said:
True, some fake reviews are going to make their way in no matter what, but they can do a better job at policing them to avoid as many fake ones as possible.


For instance:
1.) Don't display reviews from reviewers until they have reviewed at least 30 products, from at least 10 different manufacturers, brands and sellers. Until they satisfy these requirements, keep the reviews hidden, and don't count them into averages.

2.) Hide reviews downvoted by enough users, and remove their impact from averages. In order to avoid abuse (trying to remove poor reviews of your own product) only allow qualified reviewers, per #1 to rate reviews.

3.) If a reviewers reviews are continuously downvoted, suspend their reviewing rights.

4.) make all sellers sign a contract in which they agree to not post fake reviews or in any other way influence the sales of their prodicts without disclosing their financial interest in the sale. Have a section that states if they are found to violate this clause, they pay a large fine, and their selling account is suspended permanently.

Some will still slip through, but the above ought to vastly improve things.
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Oh, and I forgot the most important point. ONLY allow reviews from Amazon buyer accounts who are confirmed to have bought the exact product from the exact seller.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041715662 said:
Oh, and I forgot the most important point. ONLY allow reviews from Amazon buyer accounts who are confirmed to have bought the exact product from the exact seller.
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Hell this should be the only point. You buy an item from them, you get to review it. If someone is going to buy an item from himself just to put up a phony review then no huge deal, one review does not make all the difference in the world.
 
Darunion said:
This just happened to me last week when I bought a co-workers product and tried to review it. No one had reviewed their stuff so I decided to do one and was rejected for the same reason. We believed it was due to having shipped items to a same address at some point in time (to my place of employment).

I don't really think they are deep data mining, it likely is a simple script that checks locations.
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According to the Amazon database you now have a long list of partners who all live in the same house with you...
 
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