USA: Amazon takes action against fake reviews with lawsuits

In the USA, Amazon is taking stronger action against fake reviews. Now the company has sued the operators of Facebook groups that organize such reviews. More than 10,000 groups are affected.

Fake reviews should disappear

In a press release, the group states that fake reviews for products in Amazon stores in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan were arranged through the groups. That, in turn, is seen as the main purpose of the groups: They serve as intermediary platforms between people seeking reviews and those writing reviews. In return, money had been paid as well as products given away.

According to Amazon, the aim of the lawsuit is to find the people behind the mediated reviews in order to be able to work towards ridding its own platform of fake reviews. With the lawsuit, this should be possible in a more targeted manner: If Amazon learns through the investigation which reviews have been purchased, these can be removed in a targeted manner.

Procedure becomes stricter

Amazon’s crackdown on fake reviews has become increasingly strict in recent months. For example, the company just recently sued three companies whose business model consisted, at least in part, of brokering Amazon reviews. The proceedings against the companies AppSally, Rebatest and Pingjiae are currently still ongoing. Amazon further stated against the background of the current lawsuit that millions of questionable reviews were already being stopped. The strict handling of reviews began back in 2016, when the writing of reviews in return for payment or receipt of the rated product was banned.