Amazon on Tuesday said it’s suing the directors of greater than 10,000 Fb teams that incentivize individuals to put in writing fraudulent critiques about merchandise offered on its shops within the U.S., U.Okay., Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan.
The lawsuits are aimed toward figuring out “bad actors” and eradicating the faux critiques from Amazon’s web sites, the e-commerce big mentioned. The corporate famous that these teams have solicited fraudulent critiques for a whole bunch of merchandise offered by way of its providers, together with automotive stereos and digicam tripods. One group, known as Amazon Product Assessment, had greater than 43,000 members till Fb mother or father Meta shut it down earlier this yr.
Faux critiques have long plagued major online retailers, with fraudsters offering present playing cards or different incentives to individuals who will present glowing scores about merchandise they’ve by no means used. Product producers that resort to faux critiques are sometimes desirous to earn 5-star scores that may seize customers’ consideration or push their merchandise to the highest of Amazon’s search outcomes. However phony critiques in the end undermine the retailers’ credibility.
“Our teams stop millions of suspicious reviews before they’re ever seen by customers, and this lawsuit goes a step further to uncover perpetrators operating on social media,” Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s vp of Promoting Associate Companies, mentioned in a press release.
Amazon mentioned it has greater than 12,000 workers who work on fraud and abuse points, together with faux critiques, and that it has reported greater than 10,000 faux assessment teams to Meta.
Meta has shut down about half the teams reported by Amazon, whereas it’s investigating others, Amazon mentioned on Tuesday.
