This is an important thing to tackle too. Amazon is notorious for allowing shady practices like Sell product A for lots of 5* reviews, then change the product listing to a completely different thing (which may or may not deserve 5) ...
Another aspect is review solicitation. eg: ios games often pop up with their own modal of "Rate us" and if you click 5 it redirects you to app store to make a review, if you click 4 or less it redirects you to a feedback form. They grease the path for positive reviewers.
As an indie app developer this makes me really sad. We need reviews otherwise we won’t get enough downloads. Big companies can pay huge amounts on ads, we can’t and thus rely on positive reviews and ratings. Fact is that most users won’t rate unless asked.
While I appreciate that need, as a user this is the worst way to get me to review your app. Especially because so many of them aren't tuned for paying any attention at all to what their users are doing before prompting them. I had one app recently prompt me for a review before I'd even completed their "first time tutorial" slide deck. Not only do I not know enough at that point in time to even review the app, but if I was so inclined to click through at that moment it would have been to leave a review complaining about the practice rather than saying anything substantive about the app's functionality. But even when they're not that bad, they're almost always popping up when I open the app (the moment when I'm specifically intending to do something that I'm now being interrupted) or in the middle of some workflow. It's the same annoying behavior that web pop-up folks used to do too.
Personally, I'd rather see you add a small UI element somewhere, or a banner that appears briefly but critically doesn't cover up any controls. If you absolutely MUST use a pop up, you know when the best time to do that is? After I've completed some in app purchase. If I'm spending money on your product, chances are I'm moderately satisfied with it and feeling pretty good about it at that moment. Or if you don't have in app purchases, unless you've made a "content browsing only" app, you probably have some workflows that have a definite end state. Prompt me then, at the end of me doing what I've come to your app to do. But I've never once given a review / stars to any app that has interrupted me in the middle of or at the start of doing something.
The nRF connect app (bluetooth debugging tool, mostly) asks for reviews at the bottom of the changelog for app updates, along with an explanation for why they don't do it inside the app itself. Very glad they handle it that way, and I don't think I've seen any other app that does.
That is a nice way to avoid a dark UX pattern, but very few people actually look at changelogs, so even in that case, a less technical app doing the same thing may be missing a lot of potential reviewers.
Granted, there are plenty of other places to slot a review link in where it could be just as effective.
But that's the thing, if it pops up a plea for ratings (or an ad or anything else unwanted and annoying), then I really, genuinely and honestly DON'T like the app.
Unfortunately an annoying app will out compete a non-annoying app in terms of reviews. Even if a few people like GP 1-star it, it's still worth it since most will 5 star it.
This is the reality, but it's bad. How do we fix it? An App Store policy banning the practice? Global extensions like in web browsers that can use block lists to enable user to hide annoying elements automatically? De-weight reviews from users whose app install orginated from an ad click rather than organically to level the playing field?
The best way I've found is: stop using apps. If I'm using the phone, in either making a phone call or using Firefox. Apps might "solve some need", but it seems like all of them are more interested in data collection and selling that data to "their partners". We're better off throwing these black mirrors into the ocean.
This is what I'm doing as well. Apps have increasingly gotten more annoying in more ways - from unnecessary pop-up notifications (increased permission requests, policy updates, review pan-handling, etc), privacy issues, data hoarding and more. I also hate that almost all of the few remaining apps I do use are constantly pushing new versions into the app store, invariably with only a vaguely non-specific unchanging boilerplate sentence as a change log. Yet I never notice any new functionality or capabilities in the app and all-too-often updates only bring more ads, cross-promotion or other general enshittification (like just renaming or regrouping the same functionality in different ways - apparently for no reason other than to increase some internal aggregate 'usage metric' to hit a KPI). Although I don't know this, I assume app store algorithms must somehow (perhaps unintentionally) incentivize developers to constantly update their apps for little or no reason.
So, as a group, the long-term behavior of app developers has taught me to resist updating the few apps I do still have installed.
A way to fix the problem would be for the App Store to ban that practice _and_ itself nag the users for ratings, in the less annoying way; like, asking you to rate a list of apps you have been using a lot when you open the App Store, and also asking you to rate when you delete an app.
The typical app store workflow for me is I visit the store to download a specific app I'd like to install. That app will then have to download and install while I wait.
That "while I wait" is an ideal time to ask me to rate other recently installed apps, or an app I haven't used in a while.
I came here wanting to say the same thing. It's a lot like Amazon emailing customers periodically to review recent purchases and making it really easy to do it. I pretty often do that and it works! It doesn't feel annoying either because it isn't in my way.
The key is catching the user when they aren't completing a specific task. People often check email to pass time, which is perfect for this.
Yes. Most of the major apps play this review game, and there's no way to compete if you don't play it too.
The major apps typically exploit selection bias to solicit 5-star reviews. They will wait until the user meets some criteria for "having a good experience" and show an app review prompt at that moment.
Then, having amassed thousands of 5-star reviews, they will turn up the threshold so that only a trickle of the most likely 5-star reviews keep on trickling in to negate any negative organic reviews.
There's a related practice of "pre-prompting" where the app first asks the user whether they are satisfied and only solicits a real app review from those who pass the screening question.
It's all quite shady and makes it hard to trust app reviews. But until the app stores solve this, app developers need to play the game.
It’s only a guess, but I don’t think data is on your side. I seriously doubt that appreciative users “will, of their own accord with your nagging” rate apps. I’d bet it’s less than 2% who do
The data for physical sales definitely show that prompting customers for a review increases the amount of positive reviews you get. It’s basically what rating sites like Trustpilot sells, along with a removal of all those “unrelated you bugged me so you get a 1” reviews, because those sites tend to be a little shady.
This is just a guess, but I’m not sure getting an e-mail asking for a rating a few days after a purchase is really as “get out of my face” inducing as the App pop ups. When I open an app to buy a ticket for public transportation, that is usually while I’m actively boarding the train/bus (because why would I do this in a timely manner?). That is the least likely moment I’ll respond well to review requests. I don’t think I’ve ever been tempted to leave a bad review over one of those emails, but I’m very often tempted to do so by app pop ups. If I’m not the only one then maybe the data would be interesting?
That being said. Unless the 1 star ragers spend time on their review it’s typically rather easy to challenge by the app creator at least in the Apple Store.
That’s fair, but if you push someone to review your app they’re going to rate it as they see fit, based on what’s important to them, not what the developer thinks is important. If the user feels strongly about a particular element - such as a pop up asking for a rating - they’re going to rate it based on that element. A developer is always free to change the app if they think it’s useful to appeal to that group of users, or ignore that group of users and accept that they don’t like the way you designed the app.
That’s fine, but don’t be upset when your cry for attention is met with a one star review. You’re putting your own needs before those of your users and we all understand why.
Can’t keep working to improve an app if nobody downloads it because nobody knows it exists because nobody ever leaves reviews because nobody reminded the user that reviews are important.
I also don’t like review popups but, excepting egregious examples, I try to be patient because it is beyond most developers’ control that they have to do this in order to maintain a standing in the marketplace.
I read it as the tone of someone sick of advertising. I understand you need to sell your product (that I may even like) I just don’t give a fuck. When your UI pisses me me off enough, then you get a rating. I cannot stress this enough: It is not your customer’s job to evangelize your product, even if their literal life depends on its continued existence. Entrepreneurs/sales need to get over themselves.
If the app is "clean" in terms of respecting users and privacy, I'm totally inclined to rate it when asked.
I appreciate the resources required to make them.
What makes me really sad is that you've identified a problem with capitalism but decide to push it onto your customers. It's true that most users won't rate unless asked, but that just means they don't want to and it's not your place to “make them”. It's not their fault that big companies exist that can pay huge amounts on ads.
Yeah I understand this and definitely do not retaliate against being asked for reviews. I find the usual modal pop-up for a review can be a bit jarring or appear at inopportune moments though, i wonder if not using modals would be better.
If u wanted to be less annoying do it after the user has a "win" on your app, after they use it for something useful or they had a fun interaction depending on the type of app.
Don't just interrupt me randomly before I do the thing I need
I don’t daily drive Android, so I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent, but iOS has a system review nag/prompt that can be disabled globally. If the app lets the system manage it (where it waits a while to see how long you’ve used it before surfacing the prompt, and doesn’t redirect sub-five-star reviews to their own internal tracking), then I’m happy to leave a genuine review. If the app violates any of these rules, I go out of my way to leave a one-star review.
Don’t overrule my preferences in the name of growth hacking.
Only do this for big corporate apps. The little guys are struggling just to keep their heads above the water because Apple punishes them if they aren't getting reviews.
I only do that if the app asks me for an internal review first, and then, when I give 5 stars, it asks me to give a review again in the store - then I give 1 star.
iOS: That’s 100% against the rules. Much like other dark patterns like forcing a sign up or location access as gating to the rest of the app. Or using notifications for advertising.
Now if only Apple would enforce those (or stop doing them themselves).
I've thought about starting a page to call out the apps that abuse push notifications for ads to show that Apple isn't enforcing its rule.
> 4.5.4 ... Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages. Abuse of these services may result in revocation of your privileges.
The worst offender is DoorDash. If you turn off push ads, after you place an order it will prompt you to turn on notifications "to get the latest on your order". Agreeing turns on ads. You get the prompt even if you already have order update notifications enabled.
Deliveroo as well is incredibly needy about wanting me to let it send me notifications. This has the opposite effect as I assume it'll send me spam notifications constantly.
I have a strict rule that only people are allowed to make my devices notify; apps get notifications disabled by default.
I block every single notif from nearly every single program on my phone. The only real exceptions are my bank and brokerage and games I play everyday; you know, stuff I actually care about.
I haven't lost anything from blocking the rest, and I'm not about to start allowing now.
"Notif" because it's Not a question of If I will allow them, also because it's not worthy of being called by a full and proper name.
They probably get way more reviews with the prompt, and positive ones, than without it, despite how some morally indignant outlier HN commenters would react.
Oh they absolutely work. And given that ratings are about the only thing that matters in the App Store besides search ads, there is a huge incentive to push for it no matter how horrible it is for the user.
New ASIN. They can take a physically unbranded product and list it under a new name brand at will. They can change the quantity or bundle. They can change an irrelevant attribute. Amazon plays ignorant.
I sell a product there and some of my competitors are doing those things I listed. Their reviews are also very obviously fake. I’ve also received some obviously fake negative reviews. I’m not really holding out any hope that it’ll get better anytime soon.
I just reduced my Amazon advertising spend so I can focus on other channels. Also a little bit out of spite.
> Amazon is notorious for allowing shady practices
Yes! As a heavy, long-time Amazon user I hate this and have to believe Amazon is knowingly complicit either in continuing to enable this shady vendor behavior or conveniently looking the other way. Of course, shady vendors will game whatever measures Amazon might take to prevent such tricks but it's so prevalent I don't think Amazon seriously invests in detection/prevention of 'rating swapping' on an ongoing basis anymore.
Another super annoying thing Amazon enables is allowing sellers to list multiple different products (SKUs) on the same listing. This was originally intended for things like different colors or sizes of the same product but it is frequently abused by vendors to bundle quite different products into one listing and thus sharing one rating.
Before they were the overwhelming market leader, Amazon used to care about and invest in the accuracy and credibility of product reviews and ratings. About 10 years ago they seemed to stop putting as much effort toward this and certainly in the past five years they don't seem to care if vendors subvert the system. I understand bad behavior can never be 100% prevented but Amazon could police and penalize it far more effectively. For example, requiring sellers above a certain volume of sales and listings to have increasingly stringent "real ID" type verification, making it harder (or at least more costly) to just relist under a new identity when caught cheating.
Well step 3 is the part they just made illegal. If you are OK with breaking the law, nothing is going to stop you until you get caught and fined. Presumably the getting caught and fined part will be enough deterrent.
Please re-read. The FTC defining it as fake means nothing if the FTC does not, in practice, crack down on it regularly.
The FTC can say it's illegal to do X, and all companies can do X with impunity if the FTC, in practice, does not do anything about it when companies do X.
And how do they even audit it? Do they require only users who verifiably used/purchased the product to submit reviews? Do they require the reviewer to actually use the product? for sufficient amount of time so that the review is more than just "first impression"? So many loopholes, this won't change anything except perhaps a few big marketplaces but it's doubtful they will be able to police it
I don't have the most faith it will be easy to execute but I would imagine:
- Some disgruntled people at company's could leak directly, which would make engaging in this behavior riskier
- Random individuals or competing companies could monitor product reviews and report. For example, show that an Amazon product ID used to be for another product 3 months ago when reviews were written.
I'm optimistic. There are a lot of regulations (including digital regulations) that everyone ends up following even if the government isn't monitoring things themselves. The risk of penalty just needs to be high enough, and hopefully places like Amazon realize the downside/penalty of fake reviews now makes it worth policing.
It obviously won't help your "first impression" review problem but that's not the intent of the law and not sure why the government would be involved in that. A lot of movies don't hold up well on a rewatch, too. If you are that particular about buying something that lasts X years then you can seek out dedicated advice blogs/youtube channels.
That's actually a really good point. I can review a can opener in a few minutes. Either it opens the can or it doesn't. How would I ever review something like a Ford F-350? I don't even have a trailer heavy enough to test the towing capacity.
Well, that's a bad example ... The can opener I had for the first 50 years of my life left a dangerous crazy sharp metal edge around the opening which I cut myself on more than once. The Oxo can opener I've had for the last 10 years rolls the edge as it cuts and removes the entire top of the can; what's left is extremely safe, at least by comparison with the old style.
Then again, when I was much younger, I had a backpacking can opener that was useful when hiking in places where sometimes buying canned foods made sense. It was about as large as a very large postage stamp, and crazy good for the size and weight. I wouldn't want to use it at home (much), but it was awesome when I had to carry it around.
So, even for can openers, the story can be complicated.
Also, assuming that the primary purpose of an F350 is towing is ... interesting. Lots and lots of them here in rural NM (as much as anyway, anyway), and they are rarely towing anything.
Not debating the practicality here, but even if you need your truck to do something only once in the entirety of your ownership, it needs to be capable of this all the time. Towing, crawling, etc.
I disagree. I've never had a vehicle that does 100% of whatever I'd want a vehicle to do. At some point we need to make tradeoffs and accept that we'll either have limitations or need to solve some problems in a different way.
Letting something that is 1% of operating hours for a device drive requirements strongly is often a mistake. With some obvious exceptions because e.g. I cannot choose when I am going to engage in maximum braking and defer it to a different vehicle.
They do make trade offs. Just not the same you might make. The F350s are limited on where they can park and are a pain in the ass to drive around a city. Some people tow stuff more frequently than they go into the city though, so it probably is a reasonable trade off to them. Also comes with some other perks like comfort and more beefy off road capabilities. Something that is valuable in rural areas even without towing.
I tow stuff about a dozen times a year and live in a city. I drive a Tahoe because not being able to tow when you want to is a pretty big inconvenience even though I’m a single occupant driver 90% of the time and it’s way bigger than I “need”. Turns out it’s quite comfortable and I just like it, even if I wasn’t towing ever.
I went years of renting vehicles just to tow. It sucks in a lot of ways. No one just wakes up and thinks “I’m going to tow some stuff”. You’re doing it for a reason, there’s probably a high amount of labor involved in that reason, trying to do it all in the rental window or find an appropriate vehicle on the day you need it. Is a challenge. I’ve set rental reservations then it rains so I can’t do the work I needed to. Clear skies tomorrow but have to wait a week for another rental to be available. It’s a hassle.
Another thing I struggle with is my towing needs fluctuate a lot. Earlier this year I was doing a construction project and ended up needing to tow stuff practically every day for 6 weeks. If I tried to do that any other way than owning a capable vehicle, it’d have been logistically challenging. Trying to time vehicle rental with trailer and equipment rentals would have dragged the construction project out to easily triple the time just by adding delay, probably much longer. Not to mention the cost of it all. Which the bigger vehicles do cost more, but they are assets even if depreciating. When you rent it’s pure expense. The rent cs own calc can flip quickly.
Sure. I'm not saying it's completely unreasonable.
Here the person was saying "once in the entirety of your ownership". If it's really once in the vehicle's life, then you really should rent something else when you need this.
I understand renting vehicles to move stuff is a PITA. I've used the hardware store's trucks several times and it adds a lot of anxiety to a project (though I've never had a really tough time with availability).
Ah I think he was making a point about the need being Boolean more so than a literal meaning of once. You said 1% which probably matches up to my usage of the tow feature. All good though, those rentals are definitely the most available but they rarely work for me as I usually need more time. They design it to be highly available for short store-to-home trips.
Occasionally I still rent, sometimes I need a bigger truck than I have due to weight.
I bought a truck for similar reasons (was tired of constantly having to rent/borrow cars to tow or haul/pick up something that doesn't fit in a "normal" car). I got a lot of utility use out of it over the years and I do honestly agree, even though I now almost never have to use it for anything truck-related I'm still very happy with it, it's very comfortable and reliable. I'd buy another one in a heartbeat. The convenience of knowing I can spontaneously throw anything I want in the back without ever thinking or planning about it in the rare cases I do still occasionally have to is just the cherry on top at this point.
I think most truck drivers have a similar story and just continue buying trucks after because they’re so convenient even if the demand is super low for actual truck stuff.
The comfort part is hard to discount too as is the increased visibility* and the fact that people choose a vehicle as a fashion statement.
* yes I know tall trucks are less safe for pedestrians and near distance visibility is reduced. That’s a low frequency occurrence for me, not a lot of pedestrians where I am, and is not something I even consider during purchase. Visibility in traffic and car centric places is so much better.
if a car advertises that towing is a feature, and that the truck should be dependable in its features (which is literally Ford branding), and then towing only worked.. one time (barring extenuating circumstances) -- it most definitely is a product which failed to deliver.
I'm not talking about towing being advertised as a feature. It's that choosing a vehicle based on something you need to do once every 5 years is not a great way to choose a vehicle.
There's not even a single vehicle that I could choose that would meet all of my different use cases for 5 years. It's better to pick something that fits the 95% use case best, and figuring how best to plug the gaps for the other 5% of the time.
> but even if you need your truck to do something only once in the entirety of your ownership
I'd just say rent something for that one off time in its entire ownership. Otherwise, I'd be daily driving a 26' box truck because I moved apartments every few years.
One time I had to ship a few pallets of stuff across the country. I guess I should have just bought a semi-trailer truck as a daily driver.
I can rent a box truck for moving easially enough, and generally I know far enough in advance that I can reserve it.
However I've never found a truck I can rent to two. Sure I can rent trucks, but they come up with a large pile of fine print which says I cannot two. Even those box trucks cannot tow, or can tow but only their trailer which has specific restrictions on what you can use it for. Oh, and the trailer they allow you to use has surge brakes which are terrible.
I've rented trucks to tow a few times over the years. Enterprise truck rental has trucks for towing, just a weight restriction.
But to be honest the vast majority of times I've needed to rent a truck to tow something it's because I was renting something towable. I can't imagine I'd bother renting some equipment from one place just to rent a truck from someplace else.
In fact, it's not like one needs some giant truck to tow many things. The vehicle I've owned that had the most use out of its tow hitch was a Ford Focus. I've gotten a bit of use from my midsize crossover which has 5,000lbs of tow capacity. More than enough for a small boat or jet skis or a small trailer.
You’re making a lot of assumptions based on your reality. I usually tow heavy stuff. I max out my half ton truck limit frequently and even have to rent a 3/4 ton or 1 ton. That’s f150/1500, f250/2500, f350/3500.
It might only be a few times a year, I need to move or rent some heavy equipment (excavators and skid steers and lifts mostly). Sometimes I tow a trailer that when empty would exceed your vehicle’s limit. UTVs is a huge hobby in the US and they weight about 1500 lbs each, usually tow 3 of them and trailer is 2500-3000 itself.
My folk live in a rural area and do this stuff weekly. Yet, when you/the GP above (complaining about all the F350s with not trailers) see them, they’re likely not doing that but they came into town for something. You’re sampling is off because you never go where they are when they use those features the most.
No, my sampling is knowing people who have trucks and yet acknowledge they never tow anything. My sampling is having someone tell me they needed a giant truck because they had a third child and need the interior space compared to their old compact sedan, a truck they use to commute to their job selling insurance. My sampling is seeing rows of giant lifted trucks in an urban apartment parking garage night after night for years without ever seeing a lick of dirt on them. I'm sure they're just constantly out towing excavators to their downtown urban apartment.
They didn't just come to town or something, they live there. They work there.
Your sampling is off because you never go where there's crowds of people who absolutely just have a truck as something to commute from their urban apartment to their office job. You never bother seeing the urban cowboys going to their finance jobs.
You have sampling bias. I've known a lot of people who live in apartments who use their truck for truck things often. Many construction workers live in an apartment. Many of them get out to the country on weekends...
A vehicle is expensive. A second vehicle is a lot more expensive. Renting a truck is expensive. If you need a truck just 5% of the time it is overall cheaper to just drive a truck for everything than to have two vehicles or try to rent.
You have sampling bias. I've known a lot of people who never use their trucks for truck things. "But sometimes I put things in the bed!", acting like there's no way to fit a bicycle or a tent in a hatchback. Many office workers live in an apartment and own a truck. Many of them think they'll end up pulling a boat or a camper sometime (they never will), but in the end still just go to the same bars and clubs and other things in the city.
Spend some time in urban Texas and see tons of people who LARP as a cowboy while commuting from their zero-lot line house to their office job. They'll tell you they need a truck, but probably won't be able to point to a single time other than moving a couch that one time a couple years ago where it was actually necessary.
A vehicle is expensive. But tons of people don't pay attention to their costs. They'll drive around town at 13mpg and spend thousands a year more on fuel, tires, maintenance, and more while never really using the capacity of the vehicle they massively overbought because "it's comfortable". What percentage of people would you realistically expect to know how much they spent on fuel and maintenance on their car over the last two years? How many would have any idea how much that could be cut with a smaller car?
I'm not denying people in rural areas probably have a far higher likelihood of actually using trucks as trucks. I'm pointing to all the people in places like Plano who act like a giant truck is an essential thing to own.
And it's hilarious so many construction workers think they personally need a truck for their job. Some of these are those people I personally know who think they need a truck. They're usually not using their personal trucks to actually do any construction work. Most would be able to go to their jobs and back home in a Civic. When they're at the job site they're using the company trucks to actually do the work. A friend of mine "needed" a truck for his home construction business, a business he owns, but in the end never actually uses that truck as a truck. He drives it to the job site, gets out, hops in his International, and uses that to actually haul stuff.
For any of his employees, why would they even want to just donate their personal truck to someone else's company's use? Probably the most expensive thing they own, and they're just going to put the most demanding and high likelihood of damaging activities on it for their employer's benefit. Nope, instead they often show up in beater Camrys and what not.
And like I said earlier, another friend said he needed a truck because he needed a vehicle that could seat 5. That was the reason. Sure, need a truck for that.
I get so many people on places like HN trying to tell me these people just don't exist or are somehow very rare. And yet most people I personally know who drive massive body-on-frame SUVs and pickups are these kinds of people. Few people I know who own trucks actually use their trucks as trucks. Only a few actually do things like haul salvage engine blocks and transmissions (something where you really kind of do want a bed to crane it in and out) or actually routinely tow something.
> Yet, when you/the GP above (complaining about all the F350s with not trailers) see them, they’re likely not doing that but they came into town for something.
I don't live in town, I don't work in town. I ride my bike and run and drive in rural New Mexico.
I just checked, I drive my truck just a few times per month, and it is still cheaper to keep it (paying taxes and maintenance) than to rent the correct vehicle for my rare needs to drive. Renting is expensive, but I did discover enterprise truck rental which I didn't know of before isn't too far from my house. Plus by owning my own truck I have it when I want to go.
Of course I ride my bike most places. There are a few trips every month I make not in bike range though. If like most people I drove a car to work, then a tiny compact car and rent a truck when needed would make sense. But for me I drive to little that a large truck that does anything is cheapest (I've had the truck for 15 years)
The only trailers I can find for rents have surge brakes (or not brakes at all - and thus too light duty for what I want to haul). I'll keep my trailer with electric brakes just to avoid those.
I see a ton of 5 star reviews that just say something like "Super fast shipping!" and think, "OK, have you even opened the box? does it work? is this review for FedEx?"
Well, that's a review for fulfillment, which may or may not be done by the same entity responsible for the product. Many review forms aren't clear about whether they are asking you to review the specific product or the entire transaction experience.
I don't know this seems to be fairly broad statement that could allow enforcement for any number of schemes:
> The final rule addresses reviews and testimonials that misrepresent that they are by someone who does not exist, such as AI-generated fake reviews, or who did not have actual experience with the business or its products or services, or that misrepresent the experience of the person giving it.
It's about the actions of the business, not the person experiencing the product. If John Doe submits a review that says, "I bought and used this product, and it sucks," a business can't edit that to say, "I bought and used this product, and it was amazing." That would misrepresent the reviewer's personal experience.
Some will be obvious, such as a review for a book or game or other media item that hasn't been publicly released. I would expect a platform such as Amazon would have responsibility to suppress reviews for items that are not, and have never been for sale. A flood of reviews all coming in immediately after the product goes on sale, or a statistically improbable distribution of geographic locations would also be suspicious.
Amazon has a program (Amazon Vine Voices) that enables sellers and brands to send select customers pre-release items for review before the product goes on sale. Sellers/brands can also do that outside their sales platform. Note that these are almost always "free products in exchange for review" and are supposed to be appropriately disclosed.
Amazon is loaded with LLM generated reviews now. They stand out as overly wordy and rambling while being light on any critical discussion of the product.
To all commenters quickly pointing out the ways this rule is far from perfect: you are completely right. This being clarified, is the alternative doing nothing? Because that's where we are.
Rules degenerating into infinite whack-a-mole is a strong (though inconclusive) signal a mistake is being made. "Let's ban rent increases". "Whoops, now all the landlords are slacking on property maintenance; let's mandate maintenance." "Whoops, now all the landlords have stopped making improvements; let's let them increase rents X% when they spend at least $Y on improvements." "Whoops,..."
So you end up in some new equilibrium. Maybe that equilibrium is better, maybe it's worse, but it's simply not true that it's always better to do something rather than nothing, and pointing out the loopholes in the rules is valid criticism.
When the FTC says "we're cracking down on online reviews" with things like this the average Joe gains more confidence in them, so yes, the doing nothing approach is actually better IMO.
How about; do things that you can enforce and expect a positive net impact from, do things in a way that will address the dozens of obvious first impression questions that came up here due to lack of specifics. If you’re going to do it, put some thought into its execution and administration.
And most of all, don’t make global generalizations on commentary that is quite specific and on a very particular topic.
They probably came to different conclusions as you. And I'm sure they have reasons why they left some of that stuff on the original list out. Because they spent 2 years looking at this rather than going with their "obvious first impression questions".
You'll also note from those links that they have already been pursuing some companies over this stuff. So they're probably aware of what they're up against.
Rating averaging methods _should_ treat scores with fewer data points as less trustworthy and either suppress showing the score or apply some early-rating bias. I.e. if users are sorting by rating new products should never be near the top.
Otherwise it should be possible to sort products or even brands/sellers by age and prefer older ones with more reviews.
I'm not sure Amazon does the first though ATM, and it definitely doesn't do the latter.
I do not think the collective rating on Amazon is a blind average of the individual reviews and ratings. So what you say is probably already being done along with use of other similar signals.
This doesn't help when every useless chinese widget on Amazon with a RNG created brand name has literally thousands or even tens of thousands of fake reviews. Yeah like 10,000+ were so enamored with this {insert useless item here} that they felt compelled to leave a 5 star review. Amazon has totally sold out like eBay. I don't shop on either anymore because it's hard to find real brands and feedback and reviews are fake. Not to mention the blatant fakes of major products ...
Unfortunately some of the weird things I need I can't figure out who else sells them. I can search amazon or ebay and find someone but they don't have a presence elsewhere (at least not that I can find)
Im curious about the opposite practice, sharing reviews across several SKUs. I basically stopped looking at reviews because they were unrelated to the one I was buying.
I get that some products have configurations, like color and size, but often times wildly different products are grouped together.
I do this all the time because so many sellers bundle disparate products under one listing and rating. It's annoying that Amazon buries the option in the "See More Reviews" page which is only linked near the bottom of a product page.
On mobile they make it pretty hard to read reviews (or maybe im in some sort of A/B test where I'm only allowed to ask their LLM about what the reviews say?)
Fake or False Consumer Reviews, Consumer Testimonials, and Celebrity Testimonials: The final rule addresses reviews and testimonials that misrepresent that they are by someone who does not exist, such as AI-generated fake reviews, or who did not have actual experience with the business or its products or services
If you covertly switch the product, then the reviews shown are from people who did not have actual experience with the product.
Something similar to this happens on eBay. Sellers will sell a product say a usb adapter, cheap and fully functional, users leave reviews and then the seller changes the listing to be a completely different item, retaining all the previous ratings and sale counts. How would this apply here is a good question.
Wouldn't like to assume but regulatory bodies usually think about these things in advance no ?
Haven't ebay reviews always meant to be about the seller and not necessarily the product? Ebay started with the expectation it was normal people auctioning used goods. Having reviews for a specific product doesn't make sense when there is no fixed product. Obviously things have changed over the years but the site is still largely built around those assumptions.
Yeah so when you view a listing now from a business it will show "100 units sold" but you're right it's crazy you can just change the whole product. I think it's specific for the business sellers.
They proposed including review hijacking. There's probably a reason why they didn't include it. Or maybe they think the rules they included already cover it.
In general, this generation of application developers (not just mobile) never learned one of the most basic rules of UX, that goes back to the 90s - don't bug the user with unnecessary information and absolutely avoid using modal popups unless it's really important (to the user, not you). Those responsible for the business decision to add newsletter subscription and 'try our mobile app' popups in addition to app review ones need to be strung up with piano wire.
I mean, step 3 would be illegal... your question is impossible to answer, since you hand waive the illegal step as saying "they do it in such a way that the FTC isn't going to crack down on".
This is basically the equivalent of saying "How are you going to stop crime X if they commit crime X in a way that let's them get away with X?"
Either they find a way to enforce the rules against step 3, or they fail to do so. We can't know yet.
The online shoppers, that I know, have learned to pass on products with a few high reviews, in a highly competitive space. If the signal weak, it's not something to trust.
>How does this stop one of the most common practices?
It doesn't, as long as the US keeps operating on only the letter of the law. It's obvious you're trying to work around a law that might be incomplete. Everyone involves knows they're trying to play around, find a loophole. Everyone knows it _should_ be illegal, but isn't. As long as the US legal system does not punish for blatantly breaking the spirit of the law, you're going to get screwed.
* Step 1, take a product with a terrible rating
* Step 2, create a new SKU for the exact same product so it has no ratings
* Step 3, get a handful of fake 5-star reviews (in some way the FTC isn't going to crack down on)
* Step 4, blast the old terribly reviewed product that now has good reviews on marketing
* Step 5, get 10s of thousands of sales, $$$
* Step 6, let the terrible reviews pour in
Repeat to step 1 (possibly under a different brand name).