<story><title>Amazon’s Fake Review Economy</title><url>https://www.buzzfeed.com/nicolenguyen/amazon-fake-review-problem</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>BadCookie</author><text>You&amp;#x27;d think that Amazon would have some technology similar to FakeSpot&amp;#x27;s by now, but I&amp;#x27;m not convinced that they do. I bought a product that had the special &amp;quot;Amazon&amp;#x27;s Choice&amp;quot; label on it that turned out to be a dud. I looked up the product on FakeSpot just now, and FakeSpot (correctly, I believe) identifies the reviews on that product to be unreliable (grade level &amp;quot;C&amp;quot;). Just a single anecdote, but it&amp;#x27;s clear to me that there&amp;#x27;s a ton of room for improvement on Amazon&amp;#x27;s part.&lt;p&gt;Another strange thing about the &amp;quot;Amazon&amp;#x27;s Choice&amp;quot; label is this: I&amp;#x27;ve seen a product get that label in part due to a low number of returns ... but the seller doesn&amp;#x27;t accept returns! That should be a con, not a pro.&lt;p&gt;As you can probably tell, I have not been happy with the results of following Amazon&amp;#x27;s product choice advice.</text></item><item><author>Judgmentality</author><text>&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fakespot.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fakespot.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not perfect, but it&amp;#x27;s something.</text></item><item><author>JohnJamesRambo</author><text>&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Goodhart&amp;#x27;s_law&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Goodhart&amp;#x27;s_law&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know a way around this with Amazon but it is getting increasingly annoying using a site where everything is 4-5 stars with hundreds or thousands of reviews and you need incredible intuition to tell the fake reviews from the real ones.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vanadium</author><text>Plenty of the &amp;quot;Amazon&amp;#x27;s Choice&amp;quot; flags are...a little deceptive. Maybe not deceptive in a conventional sense, but say you see a product in the search results on Amazon and one has that flag. You click on it, because hey.&lt;p&gt;Then you notice the keywords attached to &amp;quot;Amazon&amp;#x27;s Choice&amp;quot;. Oftentimes, they&amp;#x27;re strange and esoteric. Oftentimes, that flag is put on what appears to be a random off-brand item sitting right next to a much, much better product more deserving of that &amp;quot;Choice&amp;quot; insignia.</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon’s Fake Review Economy</title><url>https://www.buzzfeed.com/nicolenguyen/amazon-fake-review-problem</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>BadCookie</author><text>You&amp;#x27;d think that Amazon would have some technology similar to FakeSpot&amp;#x27;s by now, but I&amp;#x27;m not convinced that they do. I bought a product that had the special &amp;quot;Amazon&amp;#x27;s Choice&amp;quot; label on it that turned out to be a dud. I looked up the product on FakeSpot just now, and FakeSpot (correctly, I believe) identifies the reviews on that product to be unreliable (grade level &amp;quot;C&amp;quot;). Just a single anecdote, but it&amp;#x27;s clear to me that there&amp;#x27;s a ton of room for improvement on Amazon&amp;#x27;s part.&lt;p&gt;Another strange thing about the &amp;quot;Amazon&amp;#x27;s Choice&amp;quot; label is this: I&amp;#x27;ve seen a product get that label in part due to a low number of returns ... but the seller doesn&amp;#x27;t accept returns! That should be a con, not a pro.&lt;p&gt;As you can probably tell, I have not been happy with the results of following Amazon&amp;#x27;s product choice advice.</text></item><item><author>Judgmentality</author><text>&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fakespot.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fakespot.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not perfect, but it&amp;#x27;s something.</text></item><item><author>JohnJamesRambo</author><text>&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Goodhart&amp;#x27;s_law&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Goodhart&amp;#x27;s_law&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know a way around this with Amazon but it is getting increasingly annoying using a site where everything is 4-5 stars with hundreds or thousands of reviews and you need incredible intuition to tell the fake reviews from the real ones.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rolandog</author><text>I would imagine any sort of product review classification system would be exploitable for abuse.&lt;p&gt;Anecdotal evidence: when my mother and her team were running for student council (in college), the opposing team introduced blatantly fake votes (photocopied) in favor of her team; my mother&amp;#x27;s team got disqualified for cheating, and the opposing team won.&lt;p&gt;So I could certainly picture a way in which a mischievous seller could submit fake-looking reviews for another product and get it taken down.</text></comment>