Amazon: US authorities impose fine for review hijacking

The US authorities have fined an Amazon seller for the first time for misusing the rating display on the online trading platform to mislead customers. The practice is widespread and is now having financial consequences for a retailer for the first time.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered The Bountiful Company to pay $600,000 because it believes it has proven that the company’s disclosure of the valuation of some of its has manipulated products using so-called “review hijacking”.

Bountiful takes advantage of the fact that Amazon displays the ratings of different “variants” of a product together. This function is actually designed in such a way that it summarizes the ratings of products that are available in different colors or with slightly different equipment variants, for example. However, the feature is repeatedly misused.

New products with old reviews are shown more positively

Reviews of products that have been sold on Amazon for a long time are used to make new, but completely different products with apparently many positive reviews appear more attractive. This is exactly what the Bountiful Company is said to have done in 2020 and 2021. Internal emails even confirmed that it was possible to increase sales of unpopular products by manipulating the display of reviews. In a statement, the FTC said that while “review hijacking” is a relatively new tactic, it is ultimately just normal misleading advertising. Amazon welcomed the agency’s action against the retailer, but at the same time is increasingly criticized for not taking more action against the widespread practice of manipulating product reviews.

Amazon once again asserted that “more than 99 percent” of the products available on its platform only have authentic reviews. A company spokesman urged users of Amazon Engadget to help combat fraudulent reviews by reporting such listings.

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Amazon, package, packages, package center