(Replying to PARENT post)
Amazon has begun firing off lawsuits against review stacking companies specifically to fight this type of problem.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/18/technology/amazon-lawsuit-fa...
👤adventured🕑10y🔼0🗨️0
(Replying to PARENT post)
Some companies will provide the product "for free" but then -- and here's the kicker -- require the product to be returned or they'll charge you for it. I can realistically see an unbiased review coming from that process, but not one where the reviewer gets to keep the product for free.
👤Wingman4l7🕑10y🔼0🗨️0
(Replying to PARENT post)
It is typical in the "Private Label Business" to generate the first reviews using this technique. And Amazon only allows this in their TOS if the product was provided for free.
I would be interested to build a tool which tries to analyze the reviews e.g. using Natural Language Processing (NLP) or Machine Learning techniques to get the "real" picture for a given product. NLP could help to identify the most criticized aspects for a given product so a potential buyer does not have to go through any single review.
I am not an expert in NLP/ML though. Any ideas how this could be done?
👤kiliancgn🕑10y🔼0🗨️0
(Replying to PARENT post)
Completely ignore amazon reviews.
They are mostly bogus these days.
Unless you can find 3 star reviews, I usually read those.
👤ck2🕑10y🔼0🗨️0
(Replying to PARENT post)
But tech blogs get review items all the time. Youtube game reviewers too. Most published film critiques are due to free critics screenings.
👤muddi900🕑10y🔼0🗨️0
(Replying to PARENT post)
I'm finding I have to work harder to parse meaning out of Amazon reviews than I did a few years ago. I don't see how this benefits Amazon, but I also don't see them doing much to fix it.