[HN Gopher] FTC's rule banning fake online reviews goes into effect
___________________________________________________________________
FTC's rule banning fake online reviews goes into effect
Author : indus
Score : 353 points
Date : 2024-10-22 15:21 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (abcnews.go.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (abcnews.go.com)
| bragr wrote:
| Does the regulation say anything about deceptively moderating
| reviews? e.g. deleting all the low star reviews?
|
| edit: it doesn't seem so. You just have use some weasel language:
|
| >The final rule also bars a business from misrepresenting that
| the reviews on a review portion of its website represent all or
| most of the reviews submitted when reviews have been suppressed
| based upon their ratings or negative sentiment.
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/08/...
| peteey wrote:
| yes, "This final rule, among other things, prohibits [...]
| certain review suppression practices[...]"
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/federal-register-no...
|
| Further down the notice cites the scenario: "[...] more than
| 4,500 merchants that were automatically publishing only 4- or
| 5-star consumer reviews"
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| How does this stop one of the most common practices?
|
| * Step 1, take a product with a terrible rating
|
| * Step 2, create a new SKU for the exact same product so it has
| no ratings
|
| * Step 3, get a handful of fake 5-star reviews (in some way the
| FTC isn't going to crack down on)
|
| * Step 4, blast the old terribly reviewed product that now has
| good reviews on marketing
|
| * Step 5, get 10s of thousands of sales, $$$
|
| * Step 6, let the terrible reviews pour in
|
| Repeat to step 1 (possibly under a different brand name).
| soco wrote:
| To all commenters quickly pointing out the ways this rule is
| far from perfect: you are completely right. This being
| clarified, is the alternative doing nothing? Because that's
| where we are.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Well, I think where we are is having to prove its
| fraudulent. Agreed, impractically difficult.
| conductr wrote:
| When the FTC says "we're cracking down on online reviews"
| with things like this the average Joe gains more confidence
| in them, so yes, the doing nothing approach is actually
| better IMO.
| maxerickson wrote:
| So never do anything unless you can guarantee a
| particular outcome?
| conductr wrote:
| That's a stretch. But things like this only create a
| false illusion of safety/honesty which can actually be a
| tailwind for dishonesty.
| hluska wrote:
| So, don't do anything at all because there will always be
| an issue with anything you do? Being negative is a
| weakness.
| conductr wrote:
| How about; do things that you can enforce and expect a
| positive net impact from, do things in a way that will
| address the dozens of obvious first impression questions
| that came up here due to lack of specifics. If you're
| going to do it, put some thought into its execution and
| administration.
|
| And most of all, don't make global generalizations on
| commentary that is quite specific and on a very
| particular topic.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| They have though. This has been a 2 year process.
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-
| releases/2022/10/...
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-
| releases/2023/06/...
|
| They probably came to different conclusions as you. And
| I'm sure they have reasons why they left some of that
| stuff on the original list out. Because they spent 2
| years looking at this rather than going with their
| "obvious first impression questions".
|
| You'll also note from those links that they have already
| been pursuing some companies over this stuff. So they're
| probably aware of what they're up against.
| maxerickson wrote:
| My assessment is more that the average consumer won't
| have any idea that the FTC is doing this, so I am not
| real worried about the downsides.
| conductr wrote:
| Not initially, but in time they tend to hear about it.
| Some shops are bound to brag that their reviews are FTC
| compliant and unbiased, etc.
| jessriedel wrote:
| Rules degenerating into infinite whack-a-mole is a strong
| (though inconclusive) signal a mistake is being made.
| "Let's ban rent increases". "Whoops, now all the landlords
| are slacking on property maintenance; let's mandate
| maintenance." "Whoops, now all the landlords have stopped
| making improvements; let's let them increase rents X% when
| they spend at least $Y on improvements." "Whoops,..."
|
| So you end up in some new equilibrium. Maybe that
| equilibrium is better, maybe it's worse, but it's simply
| not true that it's always better to do something rather
| than nothing, and pointing out the loopholes in the rules
| is valid criticism.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| This is an important thing to tackle too. Amazon is notorious
| for allowing shady practices like Sell product A for lots of
| 5* reviews, then change the product listing to a completely
| different thing (which may or may not deserve 5 _) ...
|
| Another aspect is review solicitation. eg: ios games often
| pop up with their own modal of "Rate us" and if you click 5_
| it redirects you to app store to make a review, if you click
| 4 or less it redirects you to a feedback form. They grease
| the path for positive reviewers.
| MBCook wrote:
| iOS: That's 100% against the rules. Much like other dark
| patterns like forcing a sign up or location access as
| gating to the rest of the app. Or using notifications for
| advertising.
|
| Now if only Apple would enforce those (or stop doing them
| themselves).
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| Unenforced rules aren't rules so much as taxes on the
| honest.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| That's a pretty clever phrase!
| potato3732842 wrote:
| And a potential cudgel with which to strike those who's
| success is inconvenient.
| avandekleut wrote:
| oof - the app we work on at my company does all of
| these..
| ahoka wrote:
| Did you just have an "Are we the baddies?" moment?
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| They probably get way more reviews with the prompt, and
| positive ones, than without it, despite how some morally
| indignant outlier HN commenters would react.
| MBCook wrote:
| Well I understand why people don't like some of them, the
| truth is the vast majority of the App Store rules are
| really good as an end user/consumer.
|
| Unfortunately Apple doesn't seem to care unless the rule
| is really good for Apple.
| rgovostes wrote:
| I've thought about starting a page to call out the apps
| that abuse push notifications for ads to show that Apple
| isn't enforcing its rule.
|
| > 4.5.4 ... Push Notifications should not be used for
| promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers
| have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent
| language displayed in your app's UI, and you provide a
| method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving
| such messages. Abuse of these services may result in
| revocation of your privileges.
|
| The worst offender is DoorDash. If you turn off push ads,
| after you place an order it will prompt you to turn on
| notifications "to get the latest on your order". Agreeing
| turns on ads. You get the prompt even if you already have
| order update notifications enabled.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| I block every single notif from nearly every single
| program on my phone. The only real exceptions are my bank
| and brokerage and games I play everyday; you know, stuff
| I actually care about.
|
| I haven't lost anything from blocking the rest, and I'm
| not about to start allowing now.
|
| "Notif" because it's Not a question of If I will allow
| them, also because it's not worthy of being called by a
| full and proper name.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I just don't install apps.
| thechao wrote:
| If an app pops up a "rate us" modal, it gets a 1-star in
| the app store, with a note to the developer _why_. I don 't
| care how great your app is.
| exe34 wrote:
| on my phone, I have play store firewalled and only allow
| it out when I want updates/install something.
|
| if I could be bothered with the effort, this is the kind
| of petty I would engage in.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Absolutely my practice as well. App devs should never be
| in the business of nagging for reviews.
| baxtr wrote:
| As an indie app developer this makes me really sad. We
| need reviews otherwise we won't get enough downloads. Big
| companies can pay huge amounts on ads, we can't and thus
| rely on positive reviews and ratings. Fact is that most
| users won't rate unless asked.
|
| If you really like an app give it a nice review.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| we will, of our own accord without nagging.
| williamdclt wrote:
| It's only a guess, but I don't think data is on your
| side. I seriously doubt that appreciative users "will, of
| their own accord with your nagging" rate apps. I'd bet
| it's less than 2% who do
| tpmoney wrote:
| While I appreciate that need, as a user this is the worst
| way to get me to review your app. Especially because so
| many of them aren't tuned for paying any attention at all
| to what their users are doing before prompting them. I
| had one app recently prompt me for a review before I'd
| even completed their "first time tutorial" slide deck.
| Not only do I not know enough at that point in time to
| even review the app, but if I was so inclined to click
| through at that moment it would have been to leave a
| review complaining about the practice rather than saying
| anything substantive about the app's functionality. But
| even when they're not that bad, they're almost always
| popping up when I open the app (the moment when I'm
| specifically intending to do something that I'm now being
| interrupted) or in the middle of some workflow. It's the
| same annoying behavior that web pop-up folks used to do
| too.
|
| Personally, I'd rather see you add a small UI element
| somewhere, or a banner that appears briefly but
| critically doesn't cover up any controls. If you
| absolutely MUST use a pop up, you know when the best time
| to do that is? After I've completed some in app purchase.
| If I'm spending money on your product, chances are I'm
| moderately satisfied with it and feeling pretty good
| about it at that moment. Or if you don't have in app
| purchases, unless you've made a "content browsing only"
| app, you probably have some workflows that have a
| definite end state. Prompt me then, at the end of me
| doing what I've come to your app to do. But I've never
| once given a review / stars to any app that has
| interrupted me in the middle of or at the start of doing
| something.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| Yeah I understand this and definitely do not retaliate
| against being asked for reviews. I find the usual modal
| pop-up for a review can be a bit jarring or appear at
| inopportune moments though, i wonder if not using modals
| would be better.
| rsync wrote:
| Does the new product have the same ASIN ?
|
| How could they allow this?
| skeltoac wrote:
| New ASIN. They can take a physically unbranded product
| and list it under a new name brand at will. They can
| change the quantity or bundle. They can change an
| irrelevant attribute. Amazon plays ignorant.
|
| I sell a product there and some of my competitors are
| doing those things I listed. Their reviews are also very
| obviously fake. I've also received some obviously fake
| negative reviews. I'm not really holding out any hope
| that it'll get better anytime soon.
|
| I just reduced my Amazon advertising spend so I can focus
| on other channels. Also a little bit out of spite.
| greggsy wrote:
| Isn't that against App Store TOS?
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| "Amazon is notorious for allowing shady practices"
|
| Surely, 'conspiring to/orchestrating profit through immoral
| practices' is a more precise statement of Amazon's
| activities.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Im curious about the opposite practice, sharing reviews
| across several SKUs. I basically stopped looking at reviews
| because they were unrelated to the one I was buying.
|
| I get that some products have configurations, like color and
| size, but often times wildly different products are grouped
| together.
| internet101010 wrote:
| Case in point: candle scents.
| layer8 wrote:
| On Amazon you can filter by the current configuration on
| the review page (at least on desktop).
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| On mobile they make it pretty hard to read reviews (or
| maybe im in some sort of A/B test where I'm only allowed
| to ask their LLM about what the reviews say?)
| bilekas wrote:
| Something similar to this happens on eBay. Sellers will sell
| a product say a usb adapter, cheap and fully functional,
| users leave reviews and then the seller changes the listing
| to be a completely different item, retaining all the previous
| ratings and sale counts. How would this apply here is a good
| question.
|
| Wouldn't like to assume but regulatory bodies usually think
| about these things in advance no ?
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Haven't ebay reviews always meant to be about the seller
| and not necessarily the product? Ebay started with the
| expectation it was normal people auctioning used goods.
| Having reviews for a specific product doesn't make sense
| when there is no fixed product. Obviously things have
| changed over the years but the site is still largely built
| around those assumptions.
| bilekas wrote:
| Yeah so when you view a listing now from a business it
| will show "100 units sold" but you're right it's crazy
| you can just change the whole product. I think it's
| specific for the business sellers.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-
| releases/2023/06/...
|
| They proposed including review hijacking. There's probably
| a reason why they didn't include it. Or maybe they think
| the rules they included already cover it.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I mean, step 3 would be illegal... your question is
| impossible to answer, since you hand waive the illegal step
| as saying "they do it in such a way that the FTC isn't going
| to crack down on".
|
| This is basically the equivalent of saying "How are you going
| to stop crime X if they commit crime X in a way that let's
| them get away with X?"
|
| Either they find a way to enforce the rules against step 3,
| or they fail to do so. We can't know yet.
| Supermancho wrote:
| The online shoppers, that I know, have learned to pass on
| products with a few high reviews, in a highly competitive
| space. If the signal weak, it's not something to trust.
| Suppafly wrote:
| Well step 3 is the part they just made illegal. If you are OK
| with breaking the law, nothing is going to stop you until you
| get caught and fined. Presumably the getting caught and fined
| part will be enough deterrent.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| what qualifies a review as fake? If I write it, it's a
| review isn't it? The whole thing is subjective. Plenty of
| people love products I can't stand
| conductr wrote:
| And how do they even audit it? Do they require only users
| who verifiably used/purchased the product to submit
| reviews? Do they require the reviewer to actually use the
| product? for sufficient amount of time so that the review
| is more than just "first impression"? So many loopholes,
| this won't change anything except perhaps a few big
| marketplaces but it's doubtful they will be able to
| police it
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| That's actually a really good point. I can review a can
| opener in a few minutes. Either it opens the can or it
| doesn't. How would I ever review something like a Ford
| F-350? I don't even have a trailer heavy enough to test
| the towing capacity.
| conductr wrote:
| I see a ton of 5 star reviews that just say something
| like "Super fast shipping!" and think, "OK, have you even
| opened the box? does it work? is this review for FedEx?"
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Well, that's a bad example ... The can opener I had for
| the first 50 years of my life left a dangerous crazy
| sharp metal edge around the opening which I cut myself on
| more than once. The Oxo can opener I've had for the last
| 10 years rolls the edge as it cuts and removes the entire
| top of the can; what's left is extremely safe, at least
| by comparison with the old style.
|
| Then again, when I was much younger, I had a backpacking
| can opener that was useful when hiking in places where
| sometimes buying canned foods made sense. It was about as
| large as a very large postage stamp, and crazy good for
| the size and weight. I wouldn't want to use it at home
| (much), but it was awesome when I had to carry it around.
|
| So, even for can openers, the story can be complicated.
|
| Also, assuming that the primary purpose of an F350 is
| towing is ... interesting. Lots and lots of them here in
| rural NM (as much as anyway, anyway), and they are rarely
| towing anything.
| bear141 wrote:
| Not debating the practicality here, but even if you need
| your truck to do something only once in the entirety of
| your ownership, it needs to be capable of this all the
| time. Towing, crawling, etc.
| mlyle wrote:
| I disagree. I've never had a vehicle that does 100% of
| whatever I'd want a vehicle to do. At some point we need
| to make tradeoffs and accept that we'll either have
| limitations or need to solve some problems in a different
| way.
|
| Letting something that is 1% of operating hours for a
| device drive requirements strongly is often a mistake.
| With some obvious exceptions because e.g. I cannot choose
| when I am going to engage in maximum braking and defer it
| to a different vehicle.
| conductr wrote:
| They do make trade offs. Just not the same you might
| make. The F350s are limited on where they can park and
| are a pain in the ass to drive around a city. Some people
| tow stuff more frequently than they go into the city
| though, so it probably is a reasonable trade off to them.
| Also comes with some other perks like comfort and more
| beefy off road capabilities. Something that is valuable
| in rural areas even without towing.
|
| I tow stuff about a dozen times a year and live in a
| city. I drive a Tahoe because not being able to tow when
| you want to is a pretty big inconvenience even though I'm
| a single occupant driver 90% of the time and it's way
| bigger than I "need". Turns out it's quite comfortable
| and I just like it, even if I wasn't towing ever.
|
| I went years of renting vehicles just to tow. It sucks in
| a lot of ways. No one just wakes up and thinks "I'm going
| to tow some stuff". You're doing it for a reason, there's
| probably a high amount of labor involved in that reason,
| trying to do it all in the rental window or find an
| appropriate vehicle on the day you need it. Is a
| challenge. I've set rental reservations then it rains so
| I can't do the work I needed to. Clear skies tomorrow but
| have to wait a week for another rental to be available.
| It's a hassle.
|
| Another thing I struggle with is my towing needs
| fluctuate a lot. Earlier this year I was doing a
| construction project and ended up needing to tow stuff
| practically every day for 6 weeks. If I tried to do that
| any other way than owning a capable vehicle, it'd have
| been logistically challenging. Trying to time vehicle
| rental with trailer and equipment rentals would have
| dragged the construction project out to easily triple the
| time just by adding delay, probably much longer. Not to
| mention the cost of it all. Which the bigger vehicles do
| cost more, but they are assets even if depreciating. When
| you rent it's pure expense. The rent cs own calc can flip
| quickly.
| mlyle wrote:
| Sure. I'm not saying it's completely unreasonable.
|
| Here the person was saying "once in the entirety of your
| ownership". If it's really once in the vehicle's life,
| then you really should rent something else when you need
| this.
|
| I understand renting vehicles to move stuff is a PITA.
| I've used the hardware store's trucks several times and
| it adds a lot of anxiety to a project (though I've never
| had a really tough time with availability).
| conductr wrote:
| Ah I think he was making a point about the need being
| Boolean more so than a literal meaning of once. You said
| 1% which probably matches up to my usage of the tow
| feature. All good though, those rentals are definitely
| the most available but they rarely work for me as I
| usually need more time. They design it to be highly
| available for short store-to-home trips.
|
| Occasionally I still rent, sometimes I need a bigger
| truck than I have due to weight.
| ultimafan wrote:
| I bought a truck for similar reasons (was tired of
| constantly having to rent/borrow cars to tow or haul/pick
| up something that doesn't fit in a "normal" car). I got a
| lot of utility use out of it over the years and I do
| honestly agree, even though I now almost never have to
| use it for anything truck-related I'm still very happy
| with it, it's very comfortable and reliable. I'd buy
| another one in a heartbeat. The convenience of knowing I
| can spontaneously throw anything I want in the back
| without ever thinking or planning about it in the rare
| cases I do still occasionally have to is just the cherry
| on top at this point.
| vel0city wrote:
| > but even if you need your truck to do something only
| once in the entirety of your ownership
|
| I'd just say rent something for that one off time in its
| entire ownership. Otherwise, I'd be daily driving a 26'
| box truck because I moved apartments every few years.
|
| One time I had to ship a few pallets of stuff across the
| country. I guess I should have just bought a semi-trailer
| truck as a daily driver.
| bluGill wrote:
| I can rent a box truck for moving easially enough, and
| generally I know far enough in advance that I can reserve
| it.
|
| However I've never found a truck I can rent to two. Sure
| I can rent trucks, but they come up with a large pile of
| fine print which says I cannot two. Even those box trucks
| cannot tow, or can tow but only their trailer which has
| specific restrictions on what you can use it for. Oh, and
| the trailer they allow you to use has surge brakes which
| are terrible.
| vel0city wrote:
| I've rented trucks to tow a few times over the years.
| Enterprise truck rental has trucks for towing, just a
| weight restriction.
|
| But to be honest the vast majority of times I've needed
| to rent a truck to tow something it's because I was
| renting something towable. I can't imagine I'd bother
| renting some equipment from one place just to rent a
| truck from someplace else.
|
| In fact, it's not like one _needs_ some giant truck to
| tow many things. The vehicle I 've owned that had the
| most use out of its tow hitch was a Ford Focus. I've
| gotten a bit of use from my midsize crossover which has
| 5,000lbs of tow capacity. More than enough for a small
| boat or jet skis or a small trailer.
| bluGill wrote:
| The only trailers I can find for rents have surge brakes
| (or not brakes at all - and thus too light duty for what
| I want to haul). I'll keep my trailer with electric
| brakes just to avoid those.
| marinmania wrote:
| I don't have the most faith it will be easy to execute
| but I would imagine:
|
| - Some disgruntled people at company's could leak
| directly, which would make engaging in this behavior
| riskier
|
| - Random individuals or competing companies could monitor
| product reviews and report. For example, show that an
| Amazon product ID used to be for another product 3 months
| ago when reviews were written.
|
| I'm optimistic. There are a lot of regulations (including
| digital regulations) that everyone ends up following even
| if the government isn't monitoring things themselves. The
| risk of penalty just needs to be high enough, and
| hopefully places like Amazon realize the downside/penalty
| of fake reviews now makes it worth policing.
|
| It obviously won't help your "first impression" review
| problem but that's not the intent of the law and not sure
| why the government would be involved in that. A lot of
| movies don't hold up well on a rewatch, too. If you are
| that particular about buying something that lasts X years
| then you can seek out dedicated advice blogs/youtube
| channels.
| LargeWu wrote:
| Some will be obvious, such as a review for a book or game
| or other media item that hasn't been publicly released. I
| would expect a platform such as Amazon would have
| responsibility to suppress reviews for items that are
| not, and have never been for sale. A flood of reviews all
| coming in immediately after the product goes on sale, or
| a statistically improbable distribution of geographic
| locations would also be suspicious.
| r00fus wrote:
| I don't know this seems to be fairly broad statement that
| could allow enforcement for any number of schemes:
|
| > The final rule addresses reviews and testimonials that
| misrepresent that they are by someone who does not exist,
| such as AI-generated fake reviews, or who did not have
| actual experience with the business or its products or
| services, or that misrepresent the experience of the
| person giving it.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Amazon is loaded with LLM generated reviews now. They
| stand out as overly wordy and rambling while being light
| on any critical discussion of the product.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| There's a difference between "fake as defined by the FTC
| which you will actually get in trouble for" and "fake".
| jasonlotito wrote:
| It's your comment in the context of the FTC. You said it
| was fake, in the context of the FTC. Why are you debating
| yourself?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Please re-read. The FTC defining it as fake means nothing
| if the FTC does not, in practice, crack down on it
| regularly.
|
| The FTC can say it's illegal to do X, and all companies
| can do X with impunity if the FTC, in practice, does not
| do anything about it when companies do X.
| rendaw wrote:
| Rating averaging methods _should_ treat scores with fewer
| data points as less trustworthy and either suppress showing
| the score or apply some early-rating bias. I.e. if users are
| sorting by rating new products should never be near the top.
|
| Otherwise it should be possible to sort products or even
| brands/sellers by age and prefer older ones with more
| reviews.
|
| I'm not sure Amazon does the first though ATM, and it
| definitely doesn't do the latter.
| slipperybeluga wrote:
| This doesn't help when every useless chinese widget on
| Amazon with a RNG created brand name has literally
| thousands or even tens of thousands of fake reviews. Yeah
| like 10,000+ were so enamored with this {insert useless
| item here} that they felt compelled to leave a 5 star
| review. Amazon has totally sold out like eBay. I don't shop
| on either anymore because it's hard to find real brands and
| feedback and reviews are fake. Not to mention the blatant
| fakes of major products ...
| reaperman wrote:
| Not sure why this was flagged - it echoes my experience
| pretty accurately!
| bluGill wrote:
| Unfortunately some of the weird things I need I can't
| figure out who else sells them. I can search amazon or
| ebay and find someone but they don't have a presence
| elsewhere (at least not that I can find)
| lancesells wrote:
| Shop other places besides Amazon. They've enabled all of this
| to increase profits.
| banannaise wrote:
| It's in the rules. Emphasis mine:
|
| Fake or False Consumer Reviews, Consumer Testimonials, and
| Celebrity Testimonials: The final rule addresses reviews and
| testimonials that misrepresent that they are by someone who
| does not exist, such as AI-generated fake reviews, _or who
| did not have actual experience with the business or its
| products or services_
|
| If you covertly switch the product, then the reviews shown
| are from people who did not have actual experience with the
| product.
| bluecalm wrote:
| Airbnb's business model in a nutshell :)
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I guess manufacturers will now just have to reject anything
| other than a five star review immediately. As long as it is not
| submitted, it cannot be suppressed
| popcalc wrote:
| FINALLY a use for MangoDB https://github.com/dcramer/mangodb
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| That lists a complexity of O(1) for all operations. I'm not
| sure that will scale. I expect my database to implement
| O(0) or lower complexity.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Will you settle for O(sqrt(1))?
| TZubiri wrote:
| Come on, regulation can only go so far. The ruling is regarding
| third party review aggregators, a discussion about self hosted
| reviews is off-topic.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| > It also bans businesses from creating or selling reviews or
| testimonials. Businesses that knowingly buy fake reviews, procure
| them from company insiders or disseminate fake reviews will be
| penalized. It also prohibits businesses from using "unfounded or
| groundless legal threats, physical threats, intimidation, or
| certain false public accusations."
|
| Still seems like it leaves in a giant loophole for all of those
| overly-cheery reviews that start with, "This item was provided to
| me by the manufacturer in exchange for a fair and honest review!"
| shkkmo wrote:
| You are no longer allowrd to provide compensation for reviews.
| So companies can still send out stuff for your to possibly
| reviews but it can't make recieving items dependent on actually
| writing a review, even 'implicitly', though we'll see how
| enforcement shakes out.
| nerdponx wrote:
| It will be impossible to enforce. The people who don't leave
| good reviews simply will get dropped from the mailing list.
| However, it forces the whole thing to kind of move
| underground, which should help at least reduce the scale of
| the problem, and creates a deterrent against getting too
| aggressive with it.
| youworkwepay wrote:
| And if enforced aggressively, will only provide a set up
| for false flag operations to get a competitor banned for
| fake reviews. I think we've already seen this movie in
| SEO....
| shkkmo wrote:
| The evidentiary standards for Google search ranking
| changes is VERY different than the one used for FTC
| enforcement actions.
|
| I'm pretty sure getting caught for trying to frame a
| company for buying reviews would bring criminal charges
| that are more serious than the FTC enforcement action.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Wouldn't this ban a huge swath of you tube reviews? I've
| watched plenty of youtube videos where some one uses a
| product and says something like "I had no interest in this
| thing, but the manufacturer offered it to me for free if I
| made a video of me using and gave my impressions of it"
| voxic11 wrote:
| Compensation can still be provided as long as it is not
| conditional on the reviewer expressing a particular
| sentiment. So your example could still be allowed.
|
| > The final rule prohibits businesses from providing
| compensation or other incentives conditioned on the writing
| of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment,
| either positive or negative.
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-
| releases/2024/08/...
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| OK, then this has been the de-facto standard amongst many
| industries for a long time. Plenty of reviewers say stuff
| like "it really is weird! I made one video about how I
| didn't like a product. After that I was never invited to
| attend a launch for a product, get early access, etc. I
| guess those two could not be correlated at all!"
|
| Based on the text you have shared it'd be perfectly fine
| if you were paid to write a "neutral" review.
| shkkmo wrote:
| The rule also prohibits implicit compensation, but we'll
| see if it's enforced/enforceable.
| hbn wrote:
| You can non-explicitly enforce positive review coverage
| by simply not sending review units to people who are
| likely to say things bad about your products. If you send
| early review units to 10 people one year, and the next
| year only 6 of them get review units, and the 4 people
| who didn't get review units this year were the 4 who gave
| the harshest review, the message is now out that you need
| to say good things if you want to continue getting early
| access to devices for reviews.
|
| SnazzyLabs is a good example - he should be well within
| the criteria for Apple to be sending him iPhones and Macs
| early, but I can only assume Apple thinks he's too
| critical when he finds an issue he doesn't like. Thus he
| has to buy his review units on street release date along
| with everyone else. How many people are giving less
| critical reviews because of that?
| DrillShopper wrote:
| nVidia tried to pull this stunt with the YouTube channel
| Hardware Unboxed. They weren't singing the praises of RTX
| and DLSS loud enough for nVidia and were threatened with
| having review samples withheld until they changed their
| tune.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > It clarifies that the conditional nature of the offer
| of compensation or incentive may be expressly or
| implicitly conveyed.
|
| So implicity only offering review units to positive
| reviewers is still not allowed.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| So if I style myself as a negative only reviewer, they
| have to give me a review unit? Like I'm that judge in the
| olympics that never gives anyone a perfect score. The
| best your product will get from me is a 2/10.
| nomel wrote:
| Could coupons be a way around this? ... [deleted]
|
| edit: after RTFM, page 42, coupons are considered valuable:
|
| > For the reasons explained in this section, the Commission
| is finalizing the definition of "purchase a consumer review"
| to mean to provide something of value, such as money, gift
| certificates, products, services, discounts, coupons, contest
| entries, or another review, in exchange for a consumer
| review.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Why would a coupon be a way around this?
|
| I think that document is specifically about taxes and
| coupons. It is not intended to define "compensation" for
| every statue in California and certainly not for federally
| issued rules from the FTC.
|
| Even then, that rule is about whether the coupon issuer is
| compensated when a coupon is used, NOT about if a customer
| is compensated if they are given a coupon.
| gniv wrote:
| The press release from FTC containing the entire rule:
| https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/08/...
| Simulacra wrote:
| I went to a salon recently and was told I could get 10% off by
| leaving a 5 star review BEFORE I received any service. That is
| something I really hate and I wish review sites monitored for
| that more. Would this be the same thing as buying reviews?
| vkou wrote:
| Leave a review, get the service, edit the review later.
| CapmCrackaWaka wrote:
| The number of establishments I have seen doing this has
| skyrocketed. The last 2, I edited my review afterwards to 1
| star and saying "this place gives a discount for good reviews".
| bena wrote:
| I mean, I would just leave.
|
| Because I'm not going to leave a review, don't really leave
| many reviews. But I'm especially not going to leave a review
| _before_ I 've received service. But if I don't leave a
| review, I'd be concerned I would be getting deliberately poor
| service.
|
| And if I'm going to get bad service, why should I subject
| myself to that?
|
| If anything, I would leave then give a 1 star review saying
| they give discounts to people who give good reviews
| beforehand and the explanation I gave above.
| datavirtue wrote:
| And they delete your review. There needs to be a
| requirement to archive all reviews for seven-ten years.
| When it was posted, how long it was up, content and user.
| This is such a rabbit hole.
|
| People cheer when government makes a rule like this but
| there is a huge costly enforcement mechanism that goes with
| this. That has to be implemented and maintained. Making the
| rule is step one, and there are hundreds more steps that
| have to happen any number of times, forever. Good luck.
| Making laws that cannot be enforced just increases the cost
| of government without having the intended effect. I can't
| think of anything that the prime offenders would like more
| than that.
| bena wrote:
| It is truly difficult because you do have people who
| leave fake negative reviews as well. And fake reviews,
| whether good or bad, should be deleted. They are useless,
| they are only there to affect review scores.
|
| It's a convoluted problem with no good answer so far.
| orev wrote:
| Yes, that would probably fall under this because 10% off is a
| form of monetary compensation. But most review sites ban this
| type of thing, but businesses do it anyway.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| If you think that's bad, I've seen doctors do this (albeit
| after providing service.)
| jsheard wrote:
| Do testimonials count as reviews? Bad news for all the product
| launches I see on here which are endorsed by 10 unidentifiable
| "people" with abbreviated surnames and suspiciously stock-photo-
| ish headshots, if so.
| fny wrote:
| Unfortunately, this rule excludes most of the fake reviews that
| plague Amazon.
|
| There are a lot of outfits in Pakistan that recruit reviewers in
| the US by offering a full refund for Chinese products in exchange
| for a five star review.
|
| This rule should require disclosure of this behavior and frankly
| any review that does not originate for a bonafide purchase.
| quercusa wrote:
| I recently bought a $9 TV antenna that promised a $50 Amazon
| gift card for a five-star review.
| xmly wrote:
| Where to get this deal?
| quercusa wrote:
| Seller was ETBRJTK (known for their quality and honesty!)
| datavirtue wrote:
| That is a dirt cheap acquisition cost.
| 1986 wrote:
| The rule covers this
|
| > Buying Positive or Negative Reviews: The final rule prohibits
| businesses from providing compensation or other incentives
| conditioned on the writing of consumer reviews expressing a
| particular sentiment, either positive or negative. It clarifies
| that the conditional nature of the offer of compensation or
| incentive may be expressly or implicitly conveyed.
|
| > Fake or False Consumer Reviews, Consumer Testimonials, and
| Celebrity Testimonials: The final rule addresses reviews and
| testimonials that misrepresent that they are by someone who
| does not exist, such as AI-generated fake reviews, or who did
| not have actual experience with the business or its products or
| services, or that misrepresent the experience of the person
| giving it. It prohibits businesses from creating or selling
| such reviews or testimonials. It also prohibits them from
| buying such reviews, procuring them from company insiders, or
| disseminating such testimonials, when the business knew or
| should have known that the reviews or testimonials were fake or
| false.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| Next can we ban 1-star reviews that just complain about the
| shipping and not the product itself?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why, if you're thinking of buying the product from the same
| vendor, would you not reconsider buying from a different vendor
| just for shipping issues? Shipping is a major part of buying
| something online, so I don't think it's a bad review to have
| available
| kbolino wrote:
| It's a review of the process or the seller, not the product.
| That having been said, Amazon and most similar online retail
| "marketplaces" make the seller much less visible than the
| product, encouraging the reviews to go in the wrong place.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I like how you've reduced the entire internet to just
| Amazon. It is possible to have reviews on _other_ websites.
| I know they really try to keep that a secret though.
| ars wrote:
| If UPS put the package by your neighbor, switching vendors
| doesn't really do anything.
|
| Or if you bought from a third party seller, but your review
| is attached to an FBA product, the shipping review has
| nothing to do with the current item.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >If UPS put the package by your neighbor, switching vendors
| doesn't really do anything.
|
| Switching to a seller that ships using fedex or usps would
| do something. We've had the inverse problem, fedex is the
| one that always screws up our deliveries and we actively
| look for sellers that don't use them.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If the review was that their shipped packages were
| improperly packaged to survive shipping of any carrier
| would be useful info. Finding out they took 6 days to
| arrange for delivery after the order is useful. Bad
| shipping doesn't just mean the selected carrier had issues
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I know it's offtopic, but try reading some recipe reviews...
|
| Chocolate cake recipe, needing a lot of butter, sugar, eggs,
| etc.
|
| And below it a one star review "I only replaced the eggs with
| aquafaba, put in just a third of sugar and a third of oil to
| make it healthier, used cocoa poweder instead of baking
| chocolate, and it was horrible, hard, clumpy, didn't taste good
| at all, never making this again, 1 star!"
| MBCook wrote:
| How about the App Store reviews on the Amazon app complaining
| about individual products, or podcast app reviews that are
| actually about individual podcasts?
| sedatk wrote:
| My only 2-star review about my book on Manning's web site is a
| complaint about not receiving the book. I don't know what madem
| them give me two stars instead of one. Maybe, they liked the
| order process. :) If they had reached out to me, I could help
| them contact with Manning support. But, there's no way I can
| reach someone from a review (there's only a name listed there,
| nothing else).
| mandibles wrote:
| Marketplaces need a vendor rating and product ratings. When
| leaving a review, the form could have sections on shipping
| separate from the product.
| barryrandall wrote:
| The review suppression rule is hilarious. The intent seems to be
| to prevent people from using asymmetric access to the legal
| system to bully reviewers into removing reviews they don't like.
| The remedy? The thing the law was trying to prevent.
| mmooss wrote:
| > the rule bans reviews and testimonials attributed to people who
| don't exist or are generated by artificial intelligence, people
| who don't have experience with the business or product/services,
| or misrepresent their experience.
|
| Does the rule apply to private citizens? I wonder if the First
| Amendment agrees with penalizing private citizens "who don't have
| experience with the business or product/services, or misrepresent
| their experience". They may mean that businesses can't engage
| people to write such reviews.
|
| Also, how will they handle the scale of enforcement? The large
| companies seem easy - one enforcement action covers all of Yelp,
| another all of Amazon, etc. But what about the infinite reviews
| at smaller vendoers?
|
| Overall though, I think this is great and long past due. The
| lawlessness of the Internet - fraud, spying, etc. - is absurd.
| bilekas wrote:
| > Does the rule apply to private citizens? I wonder if the
| First Amendment agrees with penalizing private citizens "who
| don't have experience with the business or product/services, or
| misrepresent their experience"
|
| Maybe I'm wrong but doesn't the first ammended apply to public
| speech ? Is there some nuances there when a private company is
| involved and responsible for the content on their platform, in
| this case reviews? Genuinely never sure of these things for the
| US.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Does the rule apply to private citizens? I wonder if the
| First Amendment agrees with penalizing private citizens "who
| don't have experience with the business or product/services, or
| misrepresent their experience".
|
| I'm sure someone will try to argue that, but the way I
| interpreted it is that this is not banning people from sharing
| fake reviews, it's banning businesses from publishing and
| misrepresenting those reviews as genuine. i.e. It's regulating
| the business's practices, not the (purported) consumers'.
| 8note wrote:
| Effectively, I think it still bans joke reviews. You can
| submit a joke review, but the company cannot publish it
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Does the first amendment protect financial fraud? Is this
| strictly a speech issue? Doesn't the first amendment only apply
| to people in the US? I ask because the shenanigans are world
| wide.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Almost all of the rules include the clause "for a business".
| The only rules that don't to my eye are basically "no one can
| make libelous or threatening statements to have a review
| suppressed or removed" and "no one can sell, distribute,
| purchase, or procure fake indicators of social media influence
| [...] for commercial purposes"
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| > Does the rule apply to private citizens? I wonder if the
| First Amendment agrees
|
| > with penalizing private citizens "who don't have experience
| with the business or
|
| > product/services, or misrepresent their experience". They may
| mean that
|
| > businesses can't engage people to write such reviews.
|
| The First Amendment doesn't typically protect your right to
| commit fraud, no.
| crazygringo wrote:
| There's zero first amendment problem.
|
| Because you're free to post as many false reviews on your own
| personal blog. Nobody is silencing your views.
|
| But a product page is _not_ allowed to publish those views. And
| _businesses_ have never had first amendment rights to publish
| falsehoods.
|
| It's no different from ingredient listings on food. There's no
| first amendment right for a business to lie about the
| ingredients.
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" Does the rule apply to private citizens? "_
|
| The rules do not apply to _" reviews that appear on a website
| or platform as a result of the business merely engaging in
| consumer review hosting."_ 16 CFR SS 465.2(d)(2) (2024) They
| apply (paraphrased) to things someone is paying someone else to
| say. Things people write about products without being paid to
| write them are uncontroversially First Amendment-protected
| opinion.
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/federal-register-no...
| (starts on page 153)
|
| - _" penalizing private citizens "who don't have experience
| with the business or product/services, or misrepresent their
| experience". They may mean that businesses can't engage people
| to write such reviews."_
|
| I'm not a lawyer, but I think the AP article actually misstated
| the law. The multiple paragraphs related to this only seem to
| cover the case where a review _" materially misrepresented...
| that the reviewer used or otherwise had experience with the
| product"_. The way the AP paraphrased this is different. They
| separated out "or misrepresent" with an "or", but it's not
| separate.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Is there something about the American system such that the FTC is
| more active/aggressive during Democrat office? Anyone else notice
| this trend? If it's real what causes it?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Of course. The chair of the FTC is a political position so
| changes with each administration. Very broadly, US Democrats
| are more in favor of regulation to stop abuses and US
| Republicans are more 'hands off, the market will sort it out'
| in their approach.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| With the FTC in particular, neither party wanted the FTC to
| be aggressive. Biden wanted to appoint someone else but had
| all his appointments blocked by the far-right. Lina Khan got
| in because populists (left and right) saw her as a weapon
| that could be wielded against Big Tech.
|
| There's actually a big cloud hanging over the Kamala Harris
| candidacy over whether or not Lina Khan will remain FTC
| chair. There's a lot of tech money flooding into her
| campaign. Though in this case it's also to replace the
| current SEC chair, because the SEC chair is actually
| enforcing securities law against crypto fraudsters, who would
| really like to keep their scam going.
|
| Same with Trump. Big Tech banned him for, y'know,
| _instigating a coup d 'etat_. But three years later, Big Tech
| is now trying to wine and dine him, because the FTC is
| scaring the shit out of Big Tech. You have Tim Cook going to
| Trump and Trump saying how he's going to stop the EU from
| attacking US companies. Hell, Elon Musk bought Twitter just
| so he could turn it into an arm of the Trump candidacy. And
| who knows what Mark Zuckerberg thinks. Likewise, with the SEC
| stuff, Trump _used_ to be a (rightful) big critic of crypto,
| until he realized he could make money selling tacky NFTs of
| himself, and is now also trying to get in on that crypto
| money.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >Is there something about the American system such that the FTC
| is more active/aggressive during Democrat office?
|
| Well republicans generally shoot down anything that is pro-
| consumer at the cost of business profits, even when it's
| related to consumer awareness or safety, so the only way to get
| decent pro-consumer rules enacted is when democrats are in
| power.
| bluGill wrote:
| Some of the large cases that made hackernews in the past year
| had a similar comment to yours even though the investigation
| was started under Trump and only completed recently - if you
| like the democrats though you will give all credit to the
| democrats.
|
| Which is to say there is some political differences, but don't
| make such accusations before you carefully check to ensure it
| isn't just your bias to observe more when democrats are in
| power and thus see more.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| My comment is literally 3 questions and 0
| assertions/accusations.
| cptnapalm wrote:
| Wouldn't this make the glorious reviews for the Hutzler 571
| Banana Slicer illegal? I mean this thing has saved and ended
| marriages, enabled people to live their dreams of starting zydeco
| bands, started the boomerang pigeon hunting craze, and much more.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Hutzler-3571-571-Banana-Slicer/produc...
| mandibles wrote:
| Ah, the days when the Internet was fun.
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> > the rule bans reviews and testimonials attributed to people
| who don't exist or are generated by artificial intelligence,
| people who don't have experience with the business or
| product/services, or misrepresent their experience.
|
| I guess they don't know about how people scam Amazon reviews by
| getting legit people to simply buy the product and leave a five
| star review and then get reimbursed for their purchase later by
| the company or the company the company hired to get these people
| to do this.
|
| (From 2022) Inside the Underground Market for Fake Amazon Reviews
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/fake-amazon-reviews-underground-...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Of course they know. One thing at a time.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Especially now that literally anything the FTC does could be
| struck down by a federal judge at any time, unless it is
| explicitly written out or delegated legislation.
| WesternWind wrote:
| Actually that's covered by the rule.
|
| Buying Positive or Negative Reviews: The final rule prohibits
| businesses from providing compensation or other incentives
| conditioned on the writing of consumer reviews expressing a
| particular sentiment, either positive or negative. It clarifies
| that the conditional nature of the offer of compensation or
| incentive may be expressly or implicitly conveyed.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I hope this is actively enforced with real teeth very soon. I
| 1-star fake products and call them out in reviews resulting
| in the devious vendor somehow being able to send me a
| postcard to my real physical address offering money for 5
| stars. The sham vendor also spam my email weekly. Amazon
| appears to actively support this process. It needed to be
| curtailed decades ago.
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> The final rule prohibits businesses from providing
| compensation or other incentives.
|
| Amazon has had this rule in place for a long time and I still
| get cards in the boxes of the stuff I buy, "Give us a 5 star
| review and get 30% off your next purchase!"
|
| Clearly Amazon doesn't know about this or isn't generally
| enforcing it. I'm wondering how the FTC is going to patrol
| this since Amazon has already had this rule in place for a
| while and it hasn't dissuaded sellers from changing their
| habits.
| bluGill wrote:
| The FTC can force Amazon to do more about it. Just proving
| they are trying would be a big help.
| notinmykernel wrote:
| Amazon is currently providing a LLM-generated summary of
| these faked customer reviews. To abide by the FTC ruling,
| Amazon would now have to prove that all of their training
| data is legitimate customer reviews. Do you think they
| will actually do that?
| bluGill wrote:
| If the FTC wants to they can. The government as a lot
| more power than Amazon, the only question is will they
| use it.
| arealaccount wrote:
| The people I've met that leave reviews for free product
| aren't required to leave any "particular sentiment". They
| just rely on tacit laws of reciprocity.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I've gotten lots of offers of discounts in exchange for a
| review.
|
| Not one has ever conditioned it on expressing a certain
| sentiment, rating, or anything at all.
|
| But I think most people feel strongly enough they _should_
| leave a positive review in exchange for money. It doesn 't
| even need to be said.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| "generated by artificial intelligence" ? So if I write "this
| product sucks" for a review and I use Bing or some other source
| to rewrite this to "this product's quality does not live up to
| the manufacturer's claim" based on my input does that make it a
| crime?
| digging wrote:
| I read it as "attributed to people who ... are generated by
| artificial intelligence.'
|
| Insurance against the argument that "This person who wrote
| the review _does_ exist, just not in a flesh body, they 're
| an AI creation." But that might also be an instant-flop
| argument legally since I'm sure "personhood" has some
| definition near-future AI can't hope to approach.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Christ almighty you people are exhausting.
| munk-a wrote:
| I think the bigger issue Amazon will face is that you can edit
| items in a big way... it's not like just clarifying "Multi-
| socket extension cord" to "Three socket extension cord" but
| swapping out products wholesale once you've built up a clout of
| good reviews on it.
|
| Honestly - Amazon really needs some serious lawsuits to force
| it to stop being such a bad actor in the online retail space.
| fallingknife wrote:
| This is an extremely hard problem to solve. What degree of
| change makes it a different product? And that doesn't even
| touch the problem that products can look identical on the
| outside and use cheap crap on the inside. Amazon is not a bad
| actor here. They have every incentive to solve this problem.
| But they won't, not because they don't try, but because this
| is a problem as old as commerce.
| munk-a wrote:
| It's a hard problem for a computer to solve - a computer
| shouldn't be used to solve it... computers were never used
| to solve it before Amazon because it's clearly a hard
| problem (and it scales really well with human labor).
|
| Amazon are being a bunch of cheap bastards and skimping on
| human moderation of product listings - we, as a society,
| don't need to give them a free pass for trying to make an
| even more enormous profit. This is only deeply unprofitable
| to moderate if you have a lot of products listed you're
| never going to sell any of.
| consteval wrote:
| This is 100% the problem.
|
| Suddenly we now have a ton of "new" issues cropping up
| everywhere. Suddenly being last 20-ish years. These
| aren't "new". They're just difficult to automate with a
| computer program, and every company is cheapo now and
| tries to automate everything with a computer program.
|
| This problem doesn't exist at, say, Walmart. Presumably
| they physically vet products to at least some degree.
| bombcar wrote:
| Walmart shuffles parts the other way - the barcode will
| change every year or so or whatever so they can be sure
| to clearance out the old.
|
| Walmart's online store has some similar problems. But you
| maybe it $5 to lost a product, $10 to change it, problem
| solved. Now you can hire real humans.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Users need more ability to intelligently contribute. I just
| hit this yesterday. 2-star review that was actually
| entirely about the third party that shipped expired stock,
| not about the product itself. All I could do is flag the
| review as "other", no text. (As it was the only review I
| also reported it under the something wrong with the product
| which does allow text.) And specifically give us "wrong
| version", "wrong product" and "seller, not product" flags.
| And don't reject my review that clearly called out that
| this isn't the real thing. I didn't simply get a
| counterfeit, the whole listing was counterfeit.
|
| Abuse problems? Give more weight to squawks by people with
| a lot of purchases and not a lot of what are found to be
| bogus gripes.
| crazygringo wrote:
| It's not hard at all, it just needs moderation. Amazon is
| absolutely the bad actor because they allow sellers to edit
| their listings to utterly unrelated items, rather than
| having moderators reject those changes. It's not hard to
| prevent a cheap kitchen utensil with 2,000 positive reviews
| from being edited into an expensive drone.
|
| And while moderating things like social media at scale has
| a lot of challenges, moderating product pages does not.
| There are orders of magnitude less of them, and they don't
| need to change that often.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| Good intentions by FTC. Unfortunately nearly impossible to
| enforce. It's almost like FTC banning junk/spam emails. Maybe I'm
| misunderstanding how this will be enforced and some big players
| will end up paying large fines. I think Amazon has to get their
| poop together and fix the comingling product reviews and other
| ways through their sieve that make this behavior rampant.
| diggan wrote:
| How is it impossible to enforce?
|
| Bunch of people report Amazon as being rife with fake reviews.
| FTC puts together some sort of working group that does some
| research to figure out if it's true. If it's true, they reach
| out to Amazon telling them to fix it after handing them a fine.
| After a while, they verify that Amazon implemented sufficient
| safe-guards against fake reviews.
|
| Sure, it wouldn't get rid of all fake reviews, but surely it'd
| be better than the current approach of doing absolutely
| nothing, no?
| onemoresoop wrote:
| How can you enforce people giving fake reviews for things
| they bought? Bring the review police? How can you prove
| they're given free products to review them positively? Don't
| get me wrong, I wish online reviews weren't utterly broken
| but it seems like business wants it this way. I certainly
| hope this will get fixed and not jump to the next loophole.
| consteval wrote:
| > business wants it this way
|
| Of course they want it. It's purely objective for them and
| purely deceptive to the consumer. Therefore, it's the
| perfect thing for the FTC to regulate - I mean this is what
| their purpose is.
|
| Enforcement will be difficult, but I really think platforms
| like Amazon isn't the problem. They're a unified platform,
| it's pretty easy for them to enforce better review. Maybe
| you need to have actually bought the product, maybe they
| monitor product descriptions for asking for reviews, maybe
| they audit packages for those little "review us 5 stars!"
| slips, maybe they prevent modifying products, etc.
|
| The true tough thing to enforce is little shops. You know,
| convenience stores, smoke shops, that type. I've been told,
| verbally, many times that if I review 5 stars, I get some
| discount. I doubt the FTC will send physical agents to
| check that.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| I hope this will work for fixing Amazon. But how about a
| million other websites with fake reviews?
| consteval wrote:
| It's hard to bug-squash website by website for sure. They
| scatter like cockroaches in the light.
|
| But, I think most online buying in the US goes through
| Amazon and maybe a couple other online retailers. Fix it
| there and you fixed the problem for 90% of cases.
| bluGill wrote:
| It isn't hard - you can't get everyone, but find a few
| influences who you "know" are doing this. Then make them
| aware they are being investigated - even if you don't have
| enough evidence to convict that they are aware they could
| be in trouble will make them stop. Or better yet, tell them
| you are gathering evidence, but if they cooperate with the
| investigation you will let them off - then they give you a
| copy of all the illegal communication trying to buy their
| good reviews: go after the corporations buying illegal
| reviews.
|
| Remember you don't need to get everyone doing this. Even a
| few cases that your get on the nightly news will be enough
| to stop a large majority of fraud. You just need to get
| enough that everyone else decides not to do this.
| xmly wrote:
| Good, but HOW?
| binarymax wrote:
| Don't worry, a judge in Texas in the pocket of some big company
| will shoot this down, just like the attempt to abolish non-
| competes
| nubinetwork wrote:
| Related
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41911915
| datavirtue wrote:
| Great, this solves for all the small players. What about big
| tech. They will just have to ignore this ruling.
| rachofsunshine wrote:
| If you don't have the time to thoroughly investigate material
| non-public information before deciding where to have lunch, are
| you even a responsible consumer? /s
|
| The normalization of blatant lying in business is really
| frustrating, both as a businessperson and as a member of the
| public. We (correctly) consider just making shit up for their own
| benefit a major strike against a person, but we implicitly
| tolerate it in the companies that run a good chunk of our lives!
| Hell, in some cases we even celebrate it: "wow, look how scrappy
| that person is, what a brilliant marketing ploy!" - no, they're
| just a liar.
| EasyMark wrote:
| There seems to be a LOT of normalization of straight up lies,
| made-up-on-the-spot facts, and disinformation the past 6-8
| years. Caveat emptor seems to be the SOP rather than a reminder
| to be skeptical. Of course, that's just my n=1 observation.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Historic date 2024-10-21: the last time anyone lied in a review.
|
| I'm glad they're trying. It remains to be seen how this'll sort
| out.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| People can break laws. By your logic I guess we shouldn't have
| laws then.
| rs999gti wrote:
| > People can break laws. By your logic I guess we shouldn't
| have laws then.
|
| Let me reverse this on you, how much and what type of
| punishment and penalty should be levied if laws are broken?
|
| Like this false online reviews ruling, how far should
| punishment and penalty go?
| DrillShopper wrote:
| > how much and what type of punishment and penalty should
| be levied if laws are broken?
|
| Depends on the impact of the crime the person was convicted
| of and how likely they are to do it again.
|
| > how far should punishment and penalty go?
|
| For companies who knowingly solicit or publish
| fake/compensated reviews: disgorgement of profits and
| refunds without conditions to everyone who asks. Repeated
| violations come with escalating fines that are a percentage
| of revenue (not profits) plus bans on company officers
| holding the position of officer of a publicly traded
| company for a number of years.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Hopefully this part fixes the Amazon review problem, because it
| lets them go after Amazon itself...
|
| > _It also prohibits them from ... disseminating such
| testimonials, when the business ... should have known that the
| reviews or testimonials were fake or false._
|
| Many of the Amazon fake review practices are extremely in the
| "should have known" category.
| 6510 wrote:
| It all seems quite simple to me. Just require an order number and
| the date of purchase to write a review and require all reviews be
| publicly available in a machine readable format and that anyone
| may publish them.
|
| If you pay me I can write the same using 1000 pages without
| adding anything useful.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| If the product is fake too, does a fake review count?
| sarajevo wrote:
| Do you think there will be any impact on sites like HN?
| kazinator wrote:
| The first thing you have to do is ban USA-based online
| marketplace companies from hosting foreign vendors. Then you can
| better regulate what is left.
| bluGill wrote:
| Or you can hold the marketplace companies responsible for
| whoever markets on them.
|
| Of course can't hold foreign marketplaces responsible at all -
| but that is a different loophole we can close (if it becomes a
| problem Amazon will ensure it is)
| Thinkx220 wrote:
| Why should a foreign marketplace get the same benefit of the
| doubt as a domestic market? Especially if those foreign
| markets belong to countries that are hostile to mine?
| Thinkx220 wrote:
| Classic Hacker News to complain about the market abusing the
| public's trust but when someone suggests a government make a
| change that benefits their own constituents over other
| countries it's down voted.
| tabbott wrote:
| I hope the FTC staffs a large office for enforcement on this.
| There are surely many hundreds of companies in the business of
| selling fake reviews, many of them outside the US, and I don't
| expect much change in the consumer reality of "most reviews are
| fake" without a great deal of investigatory effort tracing money
| flows to shut these operations down.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Amazonz doooomed
| capital_guy wrote:
| Amazing all the newfound lawyers in the HN section here pointing
| out "loopholes" in the rule and then getting corrected by the
| next commenter.
|
| The FTC continues to do the good, thankless work of making good
| public policy. I appreciate it.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| But did the FTC think about this loophole that I just thought
| of in three seconds? I am so smart!
| barryrandall wrote:
| It's almost like they expect the law to be dysfunctional or
| unevenly applied.
| tqi wrote:
| Do you expect that a year from now (or two, or however long you
| think is a fair amount of time to pass), online reviews will be
| noticeably better/more useful than they are today? I think the
| underlying thread here is that most people don't expect this to
| be any more effective than anti-spam or anti-robocalling
| calling rules.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I've had decent results with fakespot and not buying anything
| lower than a B rating, with a very few exceptions (not enough
| reviews for example). I think with a little digilence my Amazon
| experience has gotten better the past few years since I don't
| just buy the first cheapest thing that pops up because I'm in a
| hurry.
| nottorp wrote:
| So... wasn't this fraud even before and thus covered in some
| penal code section?
| bombcar wrote:
| There's a line between fraud and first they're trying to
| navigate. Suppressing speech in the USA is notoriously hard,
| but can be done if targeted narrowly enough.
| notinmykernel wrote:
| Amazon must be quaking in their boots.
| skeeterbug wrote:
| This spring our one year old de-humidifier died. The manufacturer
| would send you a new replacement unit, but first you had to leave
| a review of the new unit. After the review was submitted, they
| would send you an Amazon gift card with the replacement value. So
| the old units that died never get a 1 star, and the new units
| being "sold" are getting 5 stars.
|
| I guess it is still better than most companies that will find
| whatever reason they can not to replace faulty equipment.
| crazygringo wrote:
| You can edit reviews on Amazon. So absolutely go through that
| process, and once you've spent the gift card, edit your review
| to 1 star and explain why. Because that's disgusting corporate
| behavior.
| kebsup wrote:
| While making an app, I'm learning what other people in the
| industry are doing. One piece of "advice" is to put AppStore/play
| store rating dialog in the onboarding. The case studies show that
| it indeed improves the reviews by a lot, because people simply
| rate 5 stars just to get through onboarding.
| mk_chan wrote:
| Officially banning fake reviews to introduce liability is a good
| start, but the real challenge with reviews is the incentive
| structure.
|
| For positive reviews, a business will figure out customers who
| they already know had a positive experience (quick delivery,
| continuous usage, etc) and only send them invites to review. This
| is perfectly legal and the fundamental business model of many
| review websites - selling the ability to push invites and
| "manage" reviews.
|
| For negative reviews - no business wants these, and customers
| with bad experiences are likely to post them by themselves.
|
| What gets left out is the average experience because reviews are
| essentially cherry picked from the head and tail ends of the
| normal curve of experiences. This doesn't render reviews useless,
| of course. Having a large number of positive reviews is still a
| positive signal but it is nowhere close to free from
| manipulation.
| david422 wrote:
| When iOS + apps came out, Apple had a system whereby when an
| app got uninstalled it prompted the user for a star rating and
| review. Guess who was doing all the uninstalling? People that
| hated the apps, and app ratings reflected that.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I think we ought to be focusing not on whether it was "real", but
| on whether it was written by somebody that the user trusts (or
| maybe there are n trust-hops between reviewer and user). That way
| users have recourse when they're misled: they can revoke trust in
| whichever connection exposed them to the misleading review.
|
| Eventually the scammers will be isolated such that they're just
| paying each other to lie to each other, meanwhile the rest of us
| can be authentic with each other: we need to learn trust hygiene
| and bake it into our apps.
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