From The Verge:
Amazon is restricting users from posting reviews of former FBI Director James Comey’s new book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, unless the reviewer has purchased the book through the retailer.
Deadline noticed the issue, noting that the restriction is in place for the print and Kindle editions, and that some low-rated reviews might have also been removed as well. A review on audiobook platform Audible, which is owned by Amazon, complains that the user’s prior review had also been removed. We’ve reached out to Amazon and Audible for comment, and will update this post if we hear back. Barnes and Noble doesn’t appear to have any such restrictions for its reviews, and its reviews include a number of anonymous one and five starred reviews.
. . . .
This isn’t the first time that Amazon has restricted reviews for high-profile books: the company deleted a number of one-star reviews of Hillary Clinton’s book What Happened and Michael Wolfe’s book Fire & Fury: Inside the Trump White House following their publication, under the suspicion that they were published by opponents. Amazon’s Community Guidelines state that it will restrict non-Amazon Verified Purchase reviews for products when the company detects an “unusually high numbers of reviews for a product posted in a short period of time.”
Link to the rest at The Verge
I don’t believe anyone who might be interested in a book like that would care what the reviews were. If they’re looking, they’re probably going to buy it anyway. Reviews for will merely reinforce their decision, reviews against are obviously fakes.
It’s not just books. I tried the other day to post a review of Panda Express Orange Sauce. In the interest of full disclosure, I did not buy this through Amazon. I was not allowed to. I got the same message that comes up with the Comey book. You know. The one that says:
“This product currently has limitations on submitting reviews. This may be because we detected unusual review behavior on this product, or to maintain the best possible shopping experience.”
I did bitch to Amazon, telling them that I thought it looked like Amazon was taking kickbacks because… really? Orange Sauce is hot item to scam reviews on? And here’s where it gets really interesting.
Yesterday, the orange sauce had 36 reviews, 22 of which were one or two stars. Today, the product has 4 reviews, all of which are 4 or 5 stars
Yest
In my humble opinion – I think the policy on reviews for most (if not all) categories of products should be limited to amazon purchases.
That would eliminate a large amount of the “fake reviews.” Is someone going to buy a book just to give it a one star review? And at the end of the day, if your judging something because of its political content, its ‘inferior’ brand name, or because your humble opinion says a competitor is better (so you’ll never buy it, never tried it) how valid is your opinion?
Don’t get me wrong, I like leaving reviews for books I received as gifts, or items I’ve bought elsewhere, but wouldn’t it be better to avoid these type of issues?
For example, I remember when they had their prime phone. And one of your environmental groups was spamming the reviews because amazon wasn’t “Green” enough for them. It had no relation to the product at all. What a way to distort the ratings. Also, what about all the people who still (after how many years!!!!) give horrible reviews and ratings to the Fire Tablets because they don’t have all the google aps on them. You want a voice – put your money where your mouth is.
Again – one man’s humble opinion.
Agreed. It sure would cut down on the “outrage brigade” problem, or at least make it more expensive. They’d also need to remove reviews if the customer returned the book.
Years ago I posted a one-star review of a political book that I bought from Amazon and read. That review was removed, along with a ton of one-star reviews. This is probably not a new policy for Amazon, given my experience so long ago.
First people whine about Amazon fake/paid reviews, then they whine when Amazon at least ensures they’ve bought the silly thing.
And if Amazon is selling 40-50% of them, I’d expect them to be getting a lot of reviews even without the ones wanting to post reviews on things they may not have even seen.
Hmm, maybe they should post their reviews on the store sites they bought them from – oh wait – then they’d have nothing to bash Amazon about …