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I would have called this conspiracy territory, but then it broke that Amazon was doing exactly that in India.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-i...



Does this indicate that by not fixing the fake reviews problem, Amazon can, whenever it wants, get rid of a troublesome competitor?

(since the competitors are sort of forced to use fake reviews)


I guess it's double bound:

- they can really fix it (e.g. by kicking every fake review mandator) and drown competiting products far below in the search results, leaving "Amazon's choice" ones at the top.

With way fewer reviews it will be harder to argue the ranking results legitimacy.

- they don't fix it, and as you say, get an excuse to kick any random brand trying to stay afloat on their platform.

Either way Amazon wins.


"Amazon's Choice" are also littered with fake reviews. WSJ did a story on this and looked at hundreds of "[AC]" listings and found majority of listings had fake reviews; many of the fake reviews being the top reviews.


It's selective enforcement, in a different context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement


Thanks, interesting reading, and some from there linked topics as well


I would have called this conspiracy territory

It is a conspiracy theory. Some of them are just true.


Touché




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