Amazon Rids Site of Fake Book Reviews
by Lynsey Taylor
Article:
So, having just read
this article on New Your Times' webpage, it looks like Amazon is taking action on suspected
Sockpuppet, friends and family, and author peer-to-peer book reviews by having a mass purge on all reviews they say are from one of these sources, and which by definition, do not abide by their reviewing guidelines which state...
"We do not allow reviews on behalf of a person or company with a financial interest in the product or a directly competing product. This includes authors, artists, publishers, manufacturers, or third-party merchants selling the product."
But there's confusion and, in some cases, upset, over some of the decisions being made. Partly due to the fact that Amazon isn't making it very clear just how it is deciding who knows who, and whose review is real and whose isn't. And in some cases, authors are claiming they did not know and had no affiliation with the reviewers whose highly complimentary reviews have been removed. In other cases, where the authors have acknowledged they do know the reviewers on a personal level, they still insist it's unfair to remove the reviews solely on those grounds, because friend or no, they are among their biggest fans.
Bottom line is, Amazon can pretty much do whatever the heck it wants with its
site, and can implemet its guidelines however it sees fit. In removing
the fake reviews, I have no doubt a few genuine ones will be
caught in the net, as seems to already be the case. The question is, are
they worth sacrificing if it rids Amazon of the fakes? I personally think yes. Definitely.
I have to say, for me, the friends and family reviews—which I can usually spot a mile off anyway—don't actually bother me nearly as much as the other two options. Because the fact is they probably have read and loved the book just as much as they claimed to, and, biased as they may be, the review is then at least an honest representation of their true feelings on it.
The Sockpuppet reviews I
really take issue with, however. To me, those reviews are just total fabrication and I'm glad Amazon is doing something about them. Impersonating a happy customer—complete with fake name and fake glowing review, for the purposes of making sales—is wrong no matter which way you cut it. There's just no angle at which that looks acceptable. It's false representation. If the book is that good, send it out to reviewers and bloggers such as myself and get some real, honest reviews for it.
The fawning author to author reviews aren't much better, either, other than the fact they are at least real individuals and not totally invented identities. But they're clearly operating on a "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" basis. Tit for tat. So can we believe the 5-star ratings are how they truly feel about the book? Or is that just the rating they hope to receive in return for their own book? Do these busy, aspiring authors really even
read what they say they've read? It's hard to tell since the reviews are usually, in my experience, only a couple of sentences long with generalisations abound.
Of course, that's not true for all authors who review. You have to remember, authors are likely readers too, and many of the authors I follow like to write reviews on what they've been reading recently. And why shouldn't they? But again, I find it quite easy to spot the difference between those genuine reviews from established authors—who critique the work honestly and not always favourably—and the newer or aspiring authors attempting simply to create a buzz around their own books. But it seems Amazon is removing
all reviews by their registered authors. Assuming they cannot possibly be unbiased—either through friendship or direct competition—so, what? Their opinion just doesn't count at all? Well then, I guess they'll simply have to set up a new account, not as an author but as a reviewer and...Wait. Wouldn't that make it a Sockpupet account?
Crap.
So it looks like the moral of the story is that authors aren't allowed to review on Amazon. The End.
Lately, when I've been checking out Amazon reviews (which I generally only do for the freebies with no reviews available elsewhere, otherwise I'd much rather check reviews on Goodreads), I've taken to heading straight for the first review that has the "Amazon Verified Purchase" line under the title. While not a foolproof way of avoiding fake reviews, it's a least a small measure of assurance that the person
actually bought the book. But again, who's to say they didn't buy the book just to have that tag line underneath... Oyyy.
It's a sad, sad day when you can't trust what you're reading, and I applaud Amazon for taking these drastic measures, no matter how unclear their strategy might be. At least there's one thing you can be sure of here at The Demon Librarian; with our reviews (which my friend ever so kindly dubs "essays"), the amount of detail we include means you can be sure we've really read everything we review, and that the reviews represent our honest feelings. So perhaps that's the answer; if you want honest reviews, don't read them on the place that's selling the books at all. Look for independent reviewers, check out the plethora of book blogs and book communities such as
Goodreads,
Shelfari and
LibraryThing. The latter three aren't completely clear of suspect reviews, but they're definitely less prevalent, and even if there are a few sprinkled in here and there, there's usually many, many others that will happily set the record straight for you!
Article by:
Monday, December 31, 2012
Lynsey Taylor
Posts
