While Amazon has long looked down on reviews that were written in exchange for free or deeply discounted items, these write-ups were allowed so long as they followed the rules: The review must be honest, and the compensation must be fully disclosed. But as we showed earlier this year, a number of compensated reviewers were gaming the system — posting hundreds of reviews a month, almost universally positive, and for products they sometimes couldn’t possibly have used. Now Amazon has announced a nearly full ban on compensated reviews. [More]
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Amazon Bans Most Users From Writing Reviews In Exchange For Free, Discounted Items
By 10.4.16 — Updated: 10.5.16
Why Do People Spend Unpaid Hours Reviewing Everything On Amazon?
By 10.30.13
Our lab-coated colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports work hard to test and evaluate every consumer product from toilet paper to Tesla sports cars, and they get paid for their efforts. But there’s an army of product reviewers out there who volunteer their time and their only reward is peer recognition, “helpful” votes, and free stuff. They are the elite Amazon reviewers. [More]
