Amazon sues administrators of more than 11,000 Facebook groups that allegedly brokered fake online reviews

The group operators are accused of recruiting folks to write down pretend or deceptive product evaluations in alternate for cash or free objects, Amazon stated in a launch.

Faux evaluations have been a headache for Amazon for years and may result in shoppers shopping for sub-par or questionable merchandise. However the subject grew a lot worse in the course of the pandemic, when demand for e-commerce exploded and unscrupulous retailers discovered new alternatives to make use of pretend evaluations to juice their enterprise. The development has prompted UK regulators to open an investigation into whether or not Amazon and Google have harmed shoppers by failing to sufficiently shield them from pretend evaluations. Amazon and Google stated final 12 months that they’d cooperate with the inquiry.

Tuesday’s lawsuit targets exercise that allegedly led to pretend evaluations showing on Amazon’s platform in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the UK and the US. The pretend evaluations lined a variety of merchandise on the market on Amazon from automobile stereos to digicam tripods, Amazon stated.

In its criticism, Amazon stated it is taking authorized motion “with a view to study the identities of their directors, shut down these Teams, and search disgorgement of their ill-gotten positive aspects from brokering pretend evaluations.” The criticism asks a courtroom in Washington state for a cease-and-desist order towards the alleged fake-review brokers, in addition to damages and attorneys’ charges to be awarded to Amazon.

Amazon stated Meta, the mother or father firm of Fb, has eliminated greater than 5,000 fake-review teams from the social community since 2020 because of Amazon’s stories to the social media large.

One Fb group Meta eliminated earlier this 12 months was known as “Amazon Product Evaluate” and had greater than 43,000 members, Amazon stated, including that fake-review campaigns function throughout many mainstream social media platforms.

“Teams that solicit or encourage pretend evaluations violate our insurance policies and are eliminated,” Dani Lever, a spokesperson for Meta, stated in an announcement offered to CNN Enterprise. “We’re working with Amazon on this matter and can proceed to associate throughout the trade to deal with spam and faux evaluations.”