View Full Version : Amazon Reviews, Who Writes Them?
ethics
02-15-2004, 11:48 AM
A glitch on the Canadian version of Amazon.com briefly revealed the identities of anonymous reviewers, and laid bare what many of us have suspected: many of these "consumer" reviews are written by individuals with a financial interest in promoting the merchandise in question (http://nytimes.com/2004/02/14/technology/14AMAZ.html?hp).
Ok, everyone in unison, "well DUH!"
Allene
02-15-2004, 12:10 PM
Leon,
I'd love to have seen the faces of all those people when they were exposed. Wonder if the "glitch" was intentional?
I don't put a lot of stock in book reviews. They're just other people's opinions. Some of amazon.com's reviews are so badly written that it makes me wince to read them, and where do they get the time for all this stuff?
IamZed
02-15-2004, 12:15 PM
I prefer the IMDB reviews. “This movie is a piece of shit” is not banned on their site. Yet.
joseftu
02-15-2004, 03:58 PM
Of course we all remember the case of John Lott, who posted positive reviews of his own book More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws, on Amazon.com, creating a fake persona, "Mary Rosh," to pose as a student who also defended his work and attacked his critics on Usenet. His offenses against academic honesty (I know, many of you think that's an oxymoron :)) are more serious, but I think his case should have already warned us all about the reliability of Amazon (and other) reviews. But they are very entertaining to read, sometimes! :)