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dankwizard
dawnerd
Some company paid be 100 bucks to change my review to be positive so they sent the money via PayPal no problem then I changed the review to say they paid me to write a glowing review and of course Amazon ended up removing the review for being harmful to their customers
colonial
Amazon is awful when it comes to striking down accusatory customer reviews.
Last year I (like a fool) purchased some chunky thru-hole MOSFETs on Amazon. Lo and behold, despite the datasheets promising a few amps with 3.3V at the gate, I only got a few milliamps. Obviously counterfeit - but no matter how hard I tried or how much indirection I employed, Amazon always took down my review warning others of this verifiable fact.
crazygringo
You can't use the word "counterfeit" or suggest that. But you can absolutely give 1 star and explain you only got milliamps. I have a bunch of 1 star reviews. I've never had anything taken down except when I used the word "counterfeit". Also, I get it -- how do you know if it's actually counterfeit, or genuine but low-quality? There are a bunch of things I've bought that I suspected were counterfeit, then went to my local store and discovered no, the authentic item is just crap.
throaway920181
Amazon is not the place I'd go to for electronics parts. Mouser and Digikey are my go-tos.
grogenaut
you're supposed to report this to amazon customer service not via a review. just send em a photo of the bribe and they'll verify it. yes it's not as satisfying but they can't validate your review unless you also posted a photo.
like_any_other
So Amazon is complicit in fraud.
aussieguy1234
Amazon are becoming like AliExpress and Temu. They can always do it cheaper, but the quality is touch and go. Now with fake reviews it alot harder to tell what's good quality and what's not.
pergadad
Much more, Amazon also loves to remove all reviews that mention that the product is counterfeit. Several times I did receive clear counterfeit goods via Amazon, but there is no way to warn others as these reviews are blocked.
gblargg
I do Amazon Vine reviews and we learn quickly all the things we can't say. For health products you can hardly say anything due to the legalities of appearing to make health claims. People also get their reviews removed regularly for claiming something is inauthentic. I kind of get why, because a person probably doesn't have the equipment to really determine that, and Amazon has separate channels for reporting such things. Basically reviews are just for relating your experience of a product. There are ways of communicating lack of authenticity by being more humble, as in noting that it doesn't seem like leather, or when burned it melts like plastic. I've reviewed many e.g. fake memory cards, and had no problem noting that it has less capacity than claimed, and showing some test programs' results that confirm.
pseudo0
Part of the issue is that they commingle inventory their warehouses receive from third-party sellers based on ISBN. So if you receive a counterfeit, it might be the fault of the seller you bought it from, or it might be Amazon's fault for mixing in counterfeit goods from some other third-party seller without doing proper quality control. Unsurprisingly they don't want reviews that draw attention to this longstanding problem.
calibas
If Amazon put out the effort to actually combat all the shady things their marketplace helps facilitate, they wouldn't make nearly as much money.
Much cheaper to just buy out the governments (https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/amazon-com/summary?id=D0000...) that could make legal trouble for you.
cyberlurker
I bought a light fixture that had a design flaw that turned it into a fire hazard. I contacted Amazon and provided proof, hoping they’d take the product down and prevent harm to others. They did initially but within a few days the same exact item with matching SKU and photos was listed.
I have an entire category of items I will never buy from Amazon. They don’t look out for customers ahead of time, only on the backend when you complain.
jermaustin1
My wife has bought a handful of flat-pack cabinets and shelves over the last year, and it has been an experience in frustration, and furniture half assembled for weeks while we wait on a weirdly sized bolt to arrive from china because it was missing, or in one case, an entire door, or in another case a handle had been tapped to the wrong size (too big) for the bolts.
The crazy thing is these $100-250 products ship with instructions on getting 100% of your purchase back if you leave a 5-star review and email them proof you did.
neilv
I had one do something that presented a different angle for a complaint...
Some Amazon seller included some US postage stamps as a gift, along with a glossy full-color printed offer to pay me cash or more stamps for a positive review.
So I took the stamps to a post office, some kind of manager looked at them, said they'd almost guarantee that the stamps were counterfeit. So I left the stamps and the glossy offer (with the sellers's contact info) with them, to refer higher up to some kind of investigation.
I'd guess probably it will only lead back to some overseas seller who is untraceable, and who just pops back up under 10 new different names. But maybe someday Amazon will be under some kind of KYC-like obligation, to only permit sellers and other supply chain that can be held accountable for illegal/counterfeit/dangerous/stolen/etc. products.
varispeed
Some company said they know where I live and they will pay me a visit if I don't remove the bad review (product was dangerous). That was on Amazon.
_thisdot
Do they know where we live? Aren't orders fulfilled by Amazon?
account42
Did you report this to the police?
hydrogen7800
So they _can_ do something about fake reviews.
dawnerd
They can but they won’t. My original review was still there (as in was included in my updated review) saying how it was fundamentally flawed and will break. Was some video tripod with this dumb mechanism that would work itself loose by just panning. Never seen anything like it.
Plus side looks like the product doesn’t exist on Amazon so guess there’s a victory there somewhere.
brookst
Sure, just like the highway patrol can do something about speeding. Note that “do something” does not convey “completely eliminate with perfect fairness and accuracy”.
jonhohle
Nope, only real reviews.
hopelite
That must explain why I’ve seen bad reviews that have 5 stars. I guess the review itself really does not matter as much as long as the stupid starts are there.
It also reminds me of one of the biggest apartment complex management companies, Graystar using a similar method by bribing applicants with $500 off the security deposit for a 5 star review on Google maps.
rsync
Thank you for sharing that anecdote… just terrible behavior on Amazons part.
Retr0id
I can understand going for the "free upgrade" the first time around, but why continue racking up more vacuum cleaners after that? Do you plan to sell them later?
lt_kernelpanic
Obviously, the plan is to eventually collect enough to construct a Dyson sphere.
hdevarajan
[flagged]
dankwizard
You sound like my wife. I don't know. I grew up kind of poor and my mindset still has a "If I can get an item typically worth $100-200 for free, TAKE IT".
The plan was to flip them on FB market place but I've just hoarded them.
undefined
cjbgkagh
Fake reviewer vs low ballers…
wildzzz
Just hand them out as gifts to friends and family. Stick vacs for Christmas. Maybe keep a spare handy when the first one eventually breaks.
whilenot-dev
this example suggests that you'd be happy to get paid in an alternative currency in exchange for Amazon reviews, and that currency is vacuums?! tbh I think your wife is right and you know it.
Mtinie
It’s the rational option if someone is giving you something for less than it costs you and the moral implications of the action is minimal (at best).
probably_wrong
All moral implications are minimal if your morals are flexible enough.
The OP is effectively taking thousands of dollars in bribes to erode public trust. I think even a child would see that this is wrong.
I know every man has their price, but I hope when the time comes my price will be higher than "a bunch of vacuums I don't need and I can't even be bothered to sell".
shawnz
Sure, but consider the costs of consuming your space with junk. Now you have less room for things you care about, there's a maintenance burden, and there's a mental burden as well
km144
Probably the most HN-coded response I can imagine to someone asking why you would possibly want 12 vacuum cleaners.
BeFlatXIII
Christmas gifts for the whole family.
michaelbuckbee
Stocking up to give them out at Christmas?
triceratops
> why continue racking up more vacuum cleaners after that?
This guy took bribes to leave fake reviews. He obviously sucks. /s
timcobb
> I've got 12 vacuums that can clean my conscience.
Why would you want 12 vacuums? What are you going to do with them? Isn't that a senseless amount of redundant objects to horde? Don't you want room for other things in your shed?
AlienRobot
>Don't you want room for other things in your shed?
To be fair, it's vacuum so it doesn't occupy space.
immibis
But space is entirely occupied by vacuum.
Drunkfoowl
[dead]
thoroughburro
> Feel a bit dirty doing it but that's ok I've got 12 vacuums that can clean my conscience.
All it takes to lose civilisation is for everyone to think as selfishly as this.
spicyusername
Nah, civilizations been running on this attitude since it's inception, and here we are.
There's never been a magical golden age where people were any different than they are.
yifanl
The difference is mostly that people with this mindset were less empowered to enact upon it.
But we've democratized fraud now.
undefined
bsdz
I'm struggling to believe you have a dozen new vacuum cleaners in your shed. It's quite an extraordinary claim. Are you willing to share some evidence?
dankwizard
Sure. It's cold, rainy, and midnight but here's what came up in my email when searching "vacuum". It's not all, and you can see some I didn't reply to but -
bsdz
I was looking forward to seeing 12 neatly stacked & boxed vacuum cleaners in a dimly lit corner of your shed ;-)
That said, thanks for sharing the emails/headers.
It's curious that Amazon hasn't flagged you for purchasing & reviewing multiple similar items in such a short span of time. I would imagine it would be quite easy to spot someone who's bought and reviewed 12 vacuum cleaners in a 2 or 3 year window.
dankwizard
Example of the contents of an offer:
latexr
> Feel a bit dirty doing it but that's ok I've got 12 vacuums that can clean my conscience.
Thank you for the laugh.
But why keep them all? Why not give some away to friends or neighbours, or even sell them?
sokoloff
I always wondered why Amazon would show me ads for vacuums after I just bought a vacuum from them.
This sheds (no pun intended) some light on why they think there are avid vacuum collectors.
bluedino
> You've got stores that would include a $5-$20 coupon/gift card in the item in exchange for a positive review.
I had a tool manufacturer read a bad review on one of the big box home improvement stores in the US, they contacted me within a day (the store must have gave them my email address?) and offered to send me my choice of replacement tool, for free, in exchange for taking my review down.
Helps me learn which companies not to trust.
bentcorner
> Mozilla couldn't find a sustainable business model for Fakespot despite its popularity
I don't know if it's fair for me to armchair quarterback, but still - what was their business model when they decided to do the acquisition? From the outside looking in barely did anything whatsoever.
I browse Amazon using Firefox extremely often and I don't recall seeing any helper UI pop up. Even so, what would have been their strategy to monetize me? User data? Commissions? Some kind of Mozilla+ subscription?
I love FF and cheer Mozilla on where I can, but honestly these decisions are inscrutable.
burnt-resistor
Mozilla seems infected by corporate board members who probably have conflicts of interest including investments in Amazon, Google, etc.
TylerE
Mozilla seems to be infected by upper management that feels a need to justify ever spiraling salaries.
ethbr1
It's easier to justify a new thing than it is to make an improvement in an existing thing.
Why do you think VPs love new projects / products so much?
quantas
Couldn't agree more. After the founder of the company itself Brendan Eich was fired it only went downhill
b112
Are they hiring?
IncreasePosts
Mozilla wants to be the "web you can trust" brand, which involves not just shipping a browser but protecting people from the rougher sides of the internet.
zdragnar
I think this is the real answer; they've got a vague mission statement, they saw something they wanted to support, opted to buy it, and in classic Mozilla fashion let it squander because the managers in charge moved on.
It's a move straight out of Google's playbook, with the glaring flaw of them not being Google, and their user base likes them for not being Google.
Honestly, Mozilla gives me gnome vibes. They're so caught up believing their own spiel that they don't understand why they keep missing the mark.
SlowTao
I do get the feeling that Mozilla has no idea what their goal is any more. Another one they are like is Yahoo! Just seem to be endlessly trying new things but not really committing to any of the new things one they have them.
Digory
I’d guess the idea was about generalizing the team’s efforts to spot fakery across the internet, in-browser. But that horse has left the barn.
Before AI, a lot of search result gamesmanship looked more like bad Amazon reviews. But leading-edge fraud is far past “humans pretending to be real, U.S.-based consumers/posters on a website.” The tools don’t generalize anymore.
JadeNB
> Mozilla wants to be the "web you can trust" brand, which involves not just shipping a browser but protecting people from the rougher sides of the internet.
And also, apparently, selling your data. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612, and particularly move-on's comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213945.
bjord
I don't actually think there was (or needed to be) one...keep in mind they're a non-profit. I think they just wanted to make the internet a safer place, but semi-extraneous (particularly unprofitable) projects sadly need to be cut aggressively with the rising threat of the google antitrust suit, as they may lose most of their income.
okanat
Mozilla Corp is a for profit organization owned by a non-profit foundation.
bjord
That doesn't necessarily change the overall mission of the organization, but definitely does give them more flexibility to offer paid options to help sustain development, should they see an opening in the future.
This is more or less taken directly from Thunderbird's website (which I think is a fair comparison): "Thunderbird operates in a separate, for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. This structure gives us the flexibility to offer optional paid services to sustain Thunderbird’s development far into the future."
account42
Why is Mozilla, supposedly a subsidiary of a nonprofit with the goal of making the internet better, looking for business models in the first place? They should be looking for donations, sponsors, government grants, etc.
4b11b4
Right, why even buy it in the first place? I can't imagine the landscape has changed much, unless the most popular comment here is all the evidence you need...
Workaccount2
They could have slid in their referral link, which would probably make them decent money, but the "ick" factor is pretty high from consumers.
I'm sure there will be a replacement though, and I'm sure they will go hard with referral links.
guappa
Just make it opt in
colinbartlett
I recall seeing the Mozilla Review Checker pop up on Amazon shortly after I started using it as my daily driver.
I dismissed it quickly because fake reviews is not a problem I have. Maybe I'm not the target market? I do buy a lot on Amazon but can't recall ever thinking I felt burned by fake reviews.
veunes
Feels like they bought a cool tool, didn't know how to plug it into anything meaningful, and quietly sunset it when it didn’t fit the roadmap
pogue
I did search around looking for alternatives and the landscape isn't great. There's ReviewMeta.com which doesn't work 100% of the time and is no longer actively maintained as far as I can tell.
TheReviewIndex.com I didn't find to be very helpful, as it doesn't index all products and sometimes just refuses to check on listings you ask it to. It seems to have some kind of subscription model, but they don't list the price and offer some kind of enterprise model that doesn't sound like it has anything to do with checking reviews.
SearchBestSellers.com isn't for checking individual products, but it will show you the top sellers for each category so you can get an idea of what could be good in the category you're looking for
Camelcamelcamel.com is a price watch tool that will also show you some historical info on a product & notify you if you sign up and want to be emailed when a price drop occurs
There are a few others on AlternativeTo that weren't there the last time I checked. https://alternativeto.net/software/fakespot/
On Reddit, some people were mentioning alternatives, including asking ChatGPT about the product and it might have some kinda helpful advice, but nothing like Fakespot offered. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1ktm4g4/now_that_f...
If you use something else, have found a good alternative or a particular prompt you've tried in your favorite LLM to get info on an Amazon product, let us know!
doppio19
I mentioned it briefly in the blog post, but this is exactly what I'm working on! Essentially, a spiritual successor to Fakespot that combines LLM analysis, more traditional ML techniques, and rule-based heuristics to detect fake reviews. I'll likely go the "subscription with generous free trial" route, to avoid meeting the same fate as Fakespot.
I'm actively working on a prototype and have a landing page at https://www.truestar.pro if you want to get notified about when I launch.
Mtinie
Please help me understand why a subscription to your service should be a valuable addition to my monthly spend.
I buy extensively from Amazon across a number of product categories. My order history shows purchases as far back as 2005 (though I cannot be sure given I remember buying things in 1998 while in college, probably on a different account). During the intervening 20 years I can count on one hand the number of products I ordered which weren’t legitimate, matched my—admittedly moderate expectations for any commercial product—or included overhyped reviews.
I’d be interested in a service like yours if I could understand how the cost would cover itself in benefits.
Syntaf
Attribution revenue is what I would consider the gold standard for these types of services.
It makes sense on paper, if the service helps confirm legitimate reviews for you and convinces you to purchase said product, they should receive attribution revenue for helping generate the purchase.
The reality is much much messier though, because often times the people who award attribution revenue have a conflict of interest against any service that could even potentially expose bad practices happening on their marketplace.
I once worked for a popular deal site that developed a price tracking extension, a certain marketplace threatened to completely ban us from attribution revenue and we had to kill the extension over night despite our users loving it.
pogue
I saw that actually. I mentioned in another post on here recently that I figured that the only way a Fakespot v2 could exist is with a subscription model, but on the other hand, it's probably not something I could afford. Good luck with it though! You could always try advertising & affiliate links as a test to monetize the service as well.
doppio19
Thanks! Advertising is certainly a possibility, though I'm not sure using affiliate links in the browser extension itself will be an option. I know Google recently changed their policy on how browser extensions can manipulate affiliate links after the Honey scandal: https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/23/24328268/honey-coupon-co...
PUSH_AX
I really don't think this is going to work well, like how is an LLM going to know someone paid me for my review?
4b11b4
Subscription seems wrong, will prevent adoption
4b11b4
Should show me something instantly, I should be able to paste in a url
4b11b4
Hmm I can see the angle
user3939382
I’ve basically settled on only buying major brands that I already know from Amazon unless it’s something that I’m okay throwing away if it doesn’t work out. I then judge by my assessment of the bad reviews.
IMHO judging these random Chinese products with the nonsense capital letter brands by actual reviews is a lost cause.
tenuousemphasis
>I’ve basically settled on only buying major brands that I already know from Amazon
I wouldn't even do that, unless you can't find it anywhere else. Amazon commingles their returns form 3rd party sellers and Amazon direct. So you might order an item, find out it was actually a broken returned item, and then have Amazon call you a liar.
account42
Yeah same here. The sad thing is that even with this Amazon is still better than most of the competition.
doppio19
For the unfamiliar, Fakespot was a browser extension that flagged suspicious product reviews on sites like Amazon. Mozilla bought it just two years ago and integrated it directly into Firefox as their "Review Checker" feature. Today, to my dismay, they're sunsetting it. As someone building in this space, I wrote about Fakespot's history, the problem it solved, and why we need sustainable alternatives.
rasz
Did Mozilla score some absolutely unrelated deal with Amazon by any chance recently? They killed DeepSpeech very same day NVIDIA paid them $1.5mil
doppio19
Not that I'm aware of. But I do know that in late 2024, Amazon made a change where users now have to be logged in to view product reviews beyond the ones that appear on the first page (about 8 reviews). From what I can tell, Fakespot scraped the Amazon product listing pages on their backend, so that simple change would have pretty much killed its current implementation.
rasz
Indeed. You would need a plugin running on user computers, or maybe even control over User Agent. Insurmountable blocker for Mozilla.
i80and
DeepSpeech shuttered in 2021. The repo was just made read-only the other day
ashoeafoot
So they wrote a ping pong shader for monetization going with the user or selling out the user.
Solomoriah
I sell books on Amazon.com through their KDP Direct platform, and I have one book with two different covers; each is its own "book" in their catalog. FakeSpot repeatedly marked reviews I knew were valid as fake; I knew this based on the fact that the same reviewer reviewed the "other" book and that review was NOT flagged as fake. And this happened multiple times, and sometimes the wording of the two reviews were different. Further investigation showed FakeSpot had rather a poor reputation overall due to too many false positives. Good riddance, as far as I'm concerned.
doppio19
That's interesting! Did you have any guesses as to what might have been setting it off to mark those reviews as false positives?
kirykl
I have managed some Amazon product pages, which I know have never used fake reviews. Fakespot consistently had false positives for these items
veunes
It's just hard to build a blunt tool that doesn't occasionally whack honest users too
advisedwang
It is possible that that reviewer writes diverse reviews on random books so that the paid reviews it leaves have some cover.
Dwedit
With removal of reviews that the seller doesn't like, there's really no point to taking Amazon's star ratings or reviews seriously. It's all a big lie.
SamuelAdams
I’ve started resorting to the “x bought this month” metric instead. If a product works for thousands of people and they continue to buy 500+ units a month, clearly it is a good option.
If it does end up being a bad buy, Amazon typically has a 30 day return policy for most items. Use that and get something else.
derekp7
They also tell you if a product has a high return rate, which is helpful.
Loughla
Except with clothes and especially belts, I've noticed. It seems like everybody buys three of the clothes they buy and returns two of them. It makes it harder to identify shitty clothes.
dylan604
How do you know that 500 people didn't buy a scam product this month? I put as much faith in the X people bought this as I do the X people have this in their cart. It's all a way of trying to stoke FOMO
SamuelAdams
You don’t. However, that risk is mitigated with a simple, easy to use return policy, where you actually get your cash back (not airline vouchers or points or made-up things to keep you in the ecosystem).
s1mplicissimus
what makes you believe that the number you see in “x bought this month” is not some variant of if (session_is_gullible_to_displayed_sales_number) { return HIGH_SALESNUMBER; } ?
yablak
Pretty sure that metric can be gamed
aspenmayer
There’s also the strangely still-not-even-admitted-as-problematic Amazon item page referent shuffle, where one item is for sale on a given page, and the item sold by that page points to one item by a given seller. The reviews of this item are spammed positively, and then the item being sold on that page is changed by the seller, yet the reviews follow the page, not the item sold at the time the review was placed.
This combined with Amazon’s commingling of inventory of Amazon corporate sourced items and third party seller items results in a status quo in which, when purchasing an item on a page operated by the first party manufacturer and/or first party supply chain, the Amazon item picking system may still fulfill that order via inventory sourced by third party Fulfilled by Amazon sellers who knowingly and unknowingly are selling counterfeit products. You never know what you’re going to get with Amazon, and neither does Amazon or the third party sellers. It’s insane.
alwa
It sure does get there quick though. And heads back to the warehouse for free if you don’t like it.
aspenmayer
Counterfeit items are contraband and may not be legal to be shipped or mailed, as they are evidence that a crime may have occurred. To return counterfeit items for material benefit to the seller or agent in order to receive a refund is possibly helping the fraud to continue by allowing the destruction of property/evidence. I advise all folks who suspect counterfeit goods to report them to the FTC and their local police department to get a police report, and insist that the police take the item(s) as evidence, then provide the police report to Amazon to facilitate the refund, instead of returning the potential contraband to the contraband dealer for them to sell again or for them to destroy the insufficiently misleading fake item.
Scammers are somehow using Amazon itself as an A/B test for if your fakes pass muster, from what I can tell, and everyone loses but Amazon and the bad guys. How long must this continue?
veunes
I've basically defaulted to looking for 3-star reviews with coherent complaints
jen729w
Me and my partner just don't trust any reviews any more. Blogged about it here:
https://johnnydecimal.com/20-29-communication/22-blog/22.00....
So you know what we do now? Ignore the overall rating: it's worthless. Instead, go directly to the 1*. They're the only true indicator of a product/place/service.
I'm not saying take them all at face value. You still have to put in some work. But all the data is in the one-stars.
piokoch
Unfortunately 1* are often bragging of some maniacs who bought a fork and they complain it is not working great as a spoon, or just black PR from the competitors. Whole reviews system is not working.
sothatsit
The key is the ratio of crazy to sane 1 star reviews. Mostly crazies? Then the service is probably good. But if there are many sane 1 star reviews? Might be a bad place.
the_sleaze_
2 and 3 star reviews as well. If 5 of them mention the battery went out, amazon is denying service and the company is non-responsive? Next.
gnabgib
Discussion (1222 points, 1 month ago, 761 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44063662
(62 points, 27 days ago, 15 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44184974
doppio19
Yup! And today's the day.
pnw
"Mozilla couldn't find a sustainable model" seems to be a recurring theme.
mohsen1
مشک آن است که خود ببوید نه آنکه عطار بگوید
“Musk is that which smells by itself, not what the perfumer says (about it).”
This line is from Saadi Shirazi, the classical Persian poet which has become a proverb in Persian speaking world. Reviews are at this point what the seller wants you to read.
As long as Amazon is the seller, and host of the reviews there is no way to trust Amazon would be fair in hosting those reviews.
The only way to know about a product is to read about it elsewhere like New York Times which is not selling the product themselves.
the_sleaze_
More often than not those sources are getting paid for product placement. Wire-cutter, NYT, JD Power, Wired - they all get advertisement money for "reviews".
shermantanktop
Of course. But they have a reputational stake in their recommendation as well.
I take a Wirecutter top pick as meaning something very different from Bobby123's glowing review. Wirecutter may have been influenced by ad money a bit. Bobby123 may not even exist or may be entirely driven by seller compensation. And I'll never see Bobby123 again.
quitit
Some online retailers (such as galaxus for those in Europe) include return statistics on the sale page against comparison brands as well as price history graphs. This helps stamp out two of the core complaints about amazon: fake reviews and fraudulent discounts.
zdragnar
If you look around, you'll see products on Amazon occasionally marked as "frequently returned". It has steered me away from a few purchases.
Unfortunately, they haven't really countered the "keep creating new accounts" drop-shippers. Some categories are especially bad about this- if you find a back massager that you like, buy it in bulk right away, because the model and probably seller won't be around by the time you want another.
zulban
If you have to buy a back massage in bulk as backups, doesn't that means it's crap quality? Are your standards that low?
alister
There's a discoverability problem with this tool because I've never heard of Fakespot or Mozilla Review Checker until today.
> Mozilla integrated Fakespot's technology directly into Firefox as the "Mozilla Review Checker" feature, making it easier than ever for users to verify product reviews without installing separate extensions.
If it was integrated directly into Firefox, it's funny that I don't recall ever seeing it. I wonder if it gets disabled if you set your security and privacy settings too high, or if you use the Firefox ESR versions (Extended Support Release).
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It was falling behind. The dodgy stores were getting more creative and Fakespot needed to play catch up.
You've got stores that would include a $5-$20 coupon/gift card in the item in exchange for a positive review. Sure, this didn't 1:1 translate but if a user did it would look like a legitimate review.
You've got a plethora of LLMs out there just itching to GENERATE.
Then an expensive option I was suprised happened - I bought a Dyson clone vacuum cleaner off of Amazon. A few weeks later, the company emailed me and said 'We have a new model. Buy that one, leave a review, we'll refund the purchase'. So I did it. This happened about 10 more times in 2024. My outdoor shed is entirely stick vacuums.
Feel a bit dirty doing it but that's ok I've got 12 vacuums that can clean my conscience.
I think Fakespot would have difficulty with all 3 of these scenarios.