Amazon sues leaders of more than 10,000 Facebook groups it says churn out fake reviews.

Amazon filed a lawsuit towards the leaders of over 10,000 Fb teams it accused of publishing pretend evaluations on the e-commerce web site, the corporate introduced on Tuesday.

The teams work around the globe to recruit individuals to put in writing false evaluations in return for cash or free merchandise, Amazon mentioned in a information launch. One of many teams within the lawsuit, which was eliminated by Meta, the mum or dad firm of Fb, had over 43,000 members, the corporate mentioned. The “incentivized and deceptive” evaluations focused Amazon websites in america, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan.

Amazon, which within the go well with described itself as a “pioneer of product evaluations,” has handled bogus evaluations for years. Whereas the corporate’s guidelines have strict rules round pretend evaluations, it has acquired strain from the Federal Commerce Fee to take motion, Vox reported. Final yr, Britain’s Competitors and Markets Authority began an investigation into how Amazon and Alphabet deal with sham evaluations.

The corporate mentioned it had over 12,000 workers who work to fight fraudulent evaluations, together with these stemming from teams that coordinate their efforts on platforms like Fb and Twitter. Amazon mentioned it had reported over 10,000 pretend evaluation teams to Meta.

“The nefarious enterprise of brokering pretend evaluations stays an industry-wide downside, and civil litigation is just one step,” the information launch mentioned.