Justice At Last?

Newspapers recently have reported that the FTC plans late this summer to begin requiring bloggers and websites to identify all entries which have been written for compensation - i.e. by covert shills.

A typical newspaper article pointing this out is the following: http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-blogging-0622,0,1923444.story.

The proposed FTC guidelines may be viewed at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2008/11/P034520endorsementguides.pdf




My worry is that, if such regs are enforced, Amazon.com stars such as Harriet Klausner and Grady Harp may lose their inspiration to keep on publishing endless streams of ill-written, meaningless reviews, thus depriving us all of unparalled sources of merriment.

Publishing giant Elsevier in hot water over hiring shills

From the BBC News Magazine:

... the recent actions of science publisher Elsevier caused a storm. The firm offered a $25 (£15) Amazon voucher to academics who contributed to the textbook Clinical Psychology if they would go on Amazon [...] and give it five stars.

The perils of five-star reviews by Finlo Rohrer. I hope Jeff "Customer Reviews" Bozos doesn't neglect to read this piece.

And of course:

"Amazon works hard to maintain the integrity of its customer reviews," a spokesman says. "We have very clear guidelines, and when a customer reports a review that they feel is inappropriate, we investigate, and may (or may not) take it down."

Yes we believe that, just look at Amazon No.1 Top Reviewer, Harriet Klausner, who has on average been posting, what, six-to-ten reviews every day since 1999? Does anyone believe that she actually reads six-to-ten books a day, and that these hastily thrown together by way of cribbing from the jacket "reviews" -- error-ridden, opinion-free, incoherent and ungrammatical but always positive -- can be anything other than a brazen shill's trying to hornswoggle the reading public into buying the stuff? Many people emailed Amazon about this without getting back as little as acknowledgment of receipt! Anything else Amazon responds to quickly and specifically, but shilling on their site appears to be an issue Amazon doesn't want to know about. But wait, there's more:

"One of the things Amazon have is a question did you find this review helpful - reviews are ranked," says Neill [Graeme Neill of industry magazine The Bookseller]. "I wouldn't underestimate the humble customer's ability to distinguish between what is a gushing press release and a genuine 'I felt this book was fantastic'."

Yeah, and I would also not underestimate the shills' ability to get in cahoots and use this helpful/not-helpful voting capability to vote for on another and against their detractors -- especially since one of those inexplicable operational nuances of Amazon site's software which, while never openly described, just seem always to empower the shill and disable the customer, is that ON AMAZON ANYONE [literally] CAN VOTE -- AND ANY NUMBER OF TIMES AT THAT. While a purchase is required in order to post reviews or comments, nothing is required in order to vote: type in any garbage into the account-creation-page fields and you're in business. This, most likely, is how shills self-vote and conduct their negging campaigns retaliating against their detractors. Notice that realistically, Mr Casual Visitor won't use this capability: he doesn't know it exists, he won't bother organising with others, he won't spend the time needed to manipulate the site, and so on. Somehow Amazon's software always works in a way that gives power to the shill. Amazon's never stipulating the actual rules of anything on their site works this way too (imo). So... let's be honest: Amazon sells stuff, shills push the selfsame stuff, so how many PhD's do you need to connect two and two together here? "Amazon works hard to maintain the integrity" my ass.

Correction

Worse and worse, or actually better and better, Harriet under the new system is now Reviewer # 589. To some degree, justice may be of this earth after all. :-)))

An Amazon Mystery

Does anyone have an explanation why the outrageous Grady Harp keeps on rising in Amazon rankings -currently he's risen to # 3 Old Style and to # 22 New Style - whereas the website's star Ungeheurer, Harriet Klausner, continues her decline - though still # 1 Old Style, she's descended to # 579 New. The question of the reason for these frankly baffling rankings has been raised on the Amazon comment threads, but to my knowledge nobody has yet attempted an answer.

Since phoney voting on his reviews by Harp and/or his minions has been largely blocked under the new system, and since Harriet continues to post many more "reviews" of contemporary stuff that might sell than does the Maestro, "reviews" which are generally not accorded an avalanche of neggies, why does he go up and she go down so markedly? The principal difference between the two these days seems to be that Harp emends his reviews after commentators point out his barbarisms, and only then does he vote not helpful on the comment. Harriet, on the other hand, makes no changes, no matter how ludicrously inaccurate or non-grammatical her reviews so often are. She just votes a quick not helpful on any comment pointing out her errors. Could it be that Amazon is rewarding Harp's "scrupulousness" but punishing Klausner's sangfroid? As always, inquiring minds want to know.

Politics and Amazon Reviews

I don't know if you guys are following this or not, but a quick summary.

1. Hugo Chavez gave a book to President Obama about Latin America.
2. Matt Drudge provided a link to the book on Amazon.
3. Those will political views similar to Matt Drudge are bombarding the reviews with "Not Helpful" votes and frantically writing comments to 10-year old reviews.
4. Oh, and of course writing reviews for a book they have not read.

It's always something...

You know, sometimes I am ashamed to be a member of the human race.

Once again

So I'm looking at some music on Amazon and I see a book on a page that catches my attention:

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (Hardcover). Thought I'd read a review or two, just to get a feel for what it covers. Released on November 13, this review hits in less than a week.

Money makes the world go round, November 20, 2008 -- Amada Barry.

Seemed legit enough until I came to this....

"The other book I read this week that I also recommend very strongly is The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book. Let's just say it makes it a little easier for me to watch the market, and in a little better mood around my husband when I come home from work :) "

D---! Isn't Amazon going to do anything about this guy?

I left a comment, replying to someone else who had commented on the ads for the Quick Book. I used to be reluctant to do that, fearing that the person would use his 100 accounts to bash my reviews, but I don't care any more. Not after I spent about 3 or 4 hours on a review that never had a chance to one of the Quick Book ad/"reviews."

I don't understand why Amazon doesn't police for this guy, but as I think about it, perhaps the problem is far, far worse than I know -- and this guy is the least of their problems.

Enter FTC: end of Amazon "reviews" system as we know it?

Turns out what we call shilling has a politically correct, scientific-sounding name: viral marketing. So, Harriet Klausner, Morris, Gunny, W.Boudville, et al. are not shills, they're viral marketeers. OK. There's a curious article in the Financial Times, Advertisers brace for online viral marketing curbs, check it out:

Advertisers in the US are bracing themselves for regulatory changes that they fear will curtail their efforts to tap into the fast-growing online social media phenomenon.

Revised guidelines on endorsements and testimonials by the Federal Trade Commission, now under review and expected to be adopted, would hold companies liable for untruthful statements made by bloggers and users of social networking sites who receive samples of their products.

The guidelines would also hold bloggers liable for the statements they make about products.

If a blogger received a free sample of skin lotion and then incorrectly claimed the product cured eczema, the FTC could sue the company for making false or unsubstantiated statements. The blogger could be sued for making false representations. [...]

Advertisers have significantly increased spending on social media and word-of-mouth campaigns, even during the recession. Through blogs and services such as Facebook and Twitter, companies are able to communicate more directly with consumers. Spending on social media marketing [read: shilling] reached $1.35bn in 2007 and is expected to reach $3.7bn by 2011, according to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

The advertising industry has argued that the revised regulations are too stringent and would stifle innovation in the emerging field of social media. It remains in favour of self-regulation. [yeah right] [...]

“The guides needed to be updated to address not only the changes in technology, but also the consequences of new marketing practices,” said Richard Cleland, assistant director for the FTC’s division of advertising practices. “Word-of-mouth marketing is not exempt from the laws of truthful advertising.” [tell this to Jeff Bezos]

The main target of the new guidelines appears to be the widespread practice of viral marketing in which companies recruit non- employees to talk up products in exchange for samples or promotions. [See our list of Our Friends Top Reviewers below]

Companies regularly offer free samples and concert tickets to bloggers and journalists, in the hope of generating press. However, determining which bloggers are acting as an agent of a company may prove difficult.[no kidding! They "forget" to mention themselves, and how would you know otherwise? LE Cantrell likes to push this point.]

Check it out, a curious article. I hope something comes out of this move by the FTC — it's about a decade overdue.