Can Amazon lawsuit stop fake reviews?
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Corey Fedde Staff
Amazon is taking another crack at eliminating fake reviews. This time, through litigation aimed at individuals, not businesses.
The online retail giant is taking legal action against over 1,000 unidentified reviewers, who Amazon says have been offering fake review writing services for money 鈥� some for as little as $5 per review.
The lawsuit follows an 听investigation conducted by Amazon itself. Undercover Amazon employees went to Fiverr, an online marketplace for individuals seeking to sell services to others, and looked for offers to write fake Amazon reviews. The Amazon investigators would contact the potential reviewers and even hired several of them.
According to , Fiverr user 鈥渂ess98鈥� offered to write from various computers to avoid detection by Amazon. 鈥淰erifiedboss,鈥� another user offered fake reviews for money, asked Amazon's investigators to write reviews themselves and send them to him or her.
鈥淒efendants are misleading Amazon鈥檚 customers and tarnishing Amazon鈥檚听brand for their own profit and the profit of a handful of dishonest sellers and manufacturers,鈥� Amazon's听听谤别补诲蝉.
The lawsuit refers to the alleged reviewers as John Does, as their identities are unknown outside of online usernames. Fiverr.com, the online market place where many of the review services were offered, is not a target of the lawsuit.
鈥淲e have worked closely together to remove services that violate our terms of use, and respond promptly to any reports of inappropriate content,鈥� Fiverr Spokesman Channing Barringer told .
This isn't 听the first legal action Amazon has taken against fake reviews. The company filed a in April 2015 against 鈥淏uyAmazonReviews.com鈥� and other similarly named sites, seeking to shut them down.
Online reviews are now widely utilized throughout the online retail and service industries. Even physical stores and restaurants are impacted by what customers and individuals post about them online. A Harvard study showed that an increase in a rating on Yelp corresponded with an increase in revenue for a company, according to Forbes. A one-star increase resulted in a 5 to 9 percent increase in revenue.听
The potential for such large financial impact from reviews has given way various problems, including bogus online feedmack, and 听prompted myriad 听for false or negative reviews on Yelp!, Angie鈥檚 List, Amazon, blogs, Facebook, and Twitter.
In March, after an underwhelming experience with a dog obedience class, Virginian Jennifer Ujimori on Yelp and Angie鈥檚 List. The company, Dog Tranquility, responded with a defamation lawsuit for $65,000.
鈥淚 do not believe a customer imagines that typing out a review of their experience followed by a few clicks can result in getting slapped with a $65,000 lawsuit,鈥� said Jonathan Phillips, Ujimori鈥檚 attorney, to the 听
Still, there is somewhat of a cottage industry building around online reviews that are bogus or, at minimum, a tad hyperbolic. A slew of听 and websites are dedicated to finding and glorifying the best and funniest reviews online, for example. Those, combined with users and sites profiting off fake posts, are part of what Amazon called a thriving 鈥渦nhealthy ecosystem鈥� of online reviews.听
Host sites themselves, however, aren't free of accusations of foul play when it comes to online reviews. A from August 2014 alleged that Yelp required small businesses to pay to cover up negative reviews on its site.听
