Amazon authors that have been getting five-star ratings from themselves, their family, and their friends have just been spotted as the site glitched for a bit! Fake reviews has been a problem for quite a while and because of a glitch, a certain individual was able to spot fake reviews.,
Amazon Glitch Revealed Fake Reviews
According to TechDirt, a certain individual was told by someone they've known as a successful fiction author that the first five or so reviews coming from his latest Amazon book directly came from family and friends. Ever since then, the individual was reportedly careful when reading different Amazon reviews.
Just last week, it seems like a glitch revealed fake Amazon reviews by none other than the authors themselves! It was noted that the Amazon Canada site had a glitch that revealed more than what the individual was expecting.
Amazon Author Gives Themselves Fake Ratings
It was noted that any anonymous reviewer was then shown with their complete name. This meant that authors that reviewed their own books were then unmasked. Unsurprisingly, they also seemed to give themselves high reviews.
This, according to the individual's report, seemed that it should actually be easy to prevent and while Amazon keeps the reviewer's names anonymous, the individual notes that Amazon "obviously knows" who the ones giving the reviews are.
Expert Gives Opinion on Fake Ratings
It was noted that if the hidden name should match the name of the author, according to the individual, the review should not be allowed. This means, of course, that reviewers will then just make their reviews under different names.
The New York Times also tackled the existence of fake reviews. According to the article, Bing Liu, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago, whose main focus includes sentimental analysis, lifelong machine learning, and opinion mining, gave his thoughts on the matter.
Probe into Fake Reviews
The New York Times asked the professor for his opinion as to whether it is possible for a "program" or even a "group of programs" to be able to evaluate reviews and determine their own validity. Liu shared his thoughts. Fake reviews have become a growing problem and both Google and Amazon are facing a probe in the UK as consumer protection is questioned.
Biu noted that it is hard to really say without first knowing the used techniques. The main problem with the task is that there is actually often no hard proof that the detection is actually correct unless confirmation comes from the author of the fake review itself.
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Amazon 'Fakespot' Removed from Apple App Store
It was noted that it is easier if the company themselves actually hosts reviews so they can analyze the public information which can be seen by the general public as well as internal data which is capable of tracking all activities even after a person comes to Amazon.
There are a lot of unusual behaviors that can reportedly be detected. Unfortunately, it was noted that such data is still unavailable to those outside of the site. Although there was an app called "Fakespot" that could spot fake reviews, Amazon got the "Fakespot" app removed from the Apple App Store.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian B.
