RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Amazon.com customer review hassle

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Tue, 2 Mar 2004, Ross, Matthew wrote:

> > The positive reviews seem to be written by Slater's friends -- e.g.,
> > stmahler is Susan Mahler, a friend of Slater who is thanked by Slater
> > in the book!  "A reader from Boston" could be Slater herself, for all
> > we know.
>
> Is there a place to report at least Susan to Amazon for abuse of the
> system, and mention that Slater is from Boston and could well be that
> "reader"?


I don't think so.  In fact, they often have the information stored in
their databases and could tell that authors are posting glowing reviews of
their own books.  They don't care.  Mikhail posted this last week:

Amazon.com Pierces Reviewer Anonymity
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/14/1852241&mode=thread

Regarding Susan Mahler - she isn't an author but she doesn't mention that
she knows the author.  I doubt Amazon will see that as improper use of
their review system when they don't seem to care about authors posting
anonymous reviews of their own books.

In general, reader/user reviews of products/services on the internet are
highly suspect.  One person can ask their friends to help out (as I have
done in this case) and completely skew the results.

Mike
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