Amazon is looking to end the practice of shady sellers paying money to receive positive four or five star reviews beneath their product listings, with the commerce giant aiming to smash some prolific review-sellers out of business using its immense legal cannons.
A court filing has revealed that Amazon’s going after four separate review sale sites — buyazonreviews.com, buyamazonreviews.com, bayreviews.net and buyreviewsnow.com — claiming the sellers of misleading reviews “…threaten to undermine the trust that customers, and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers, place in Amazon, thereby tarnishing Amazon’s brand.”
Amazon says the drip of fake positive reviews left beneath a small number of listings, which are often populated over long periods of time so as to appear a little more organic in nature, are coming via sites that also infringe its trademarks and are domain squatting in their use of sites that mimic the Amazon brand.
Amazon is also seeking financial compensation from those it says are gradually undermining its solid three-star reputation, although with paid positive reviews said to cost around $US19 to $US22 a time, it’s unlikely any of the perpetrators of this modern crime of misdirection have particularly huge personal wealth piles to draw from. [Reuters]
Picture: Nic Taylor
