As well as promising the entire world in a FedEx box, Amazon also trades on the quality of its reviews. So it’s actually not surprising that the company is taking 1,114 unknown reviewers to court.
It’s not the first time that Amazon has taken legal action against fake reviews: back in April, it sued a bunch of websites that offered fake five-star reviews. But this time, it’s going after the fake authors themselves.
The lawsuit targets 1,114 ‘John Does’ who were selling a five-star review service for $5 on Fiverr. The company claims that it conducted an investigation, where it found people offering fake reviews and using multiple IP addresses to avoid detection by Amazon.
The problem certainly exists—‘amazon reviews’ autocompletes suspiciously quickly on Fiverr—but whether or not Amazon actually achieves anything (or finds anyone) from this lawsuit is a wholly different matter.
[BBC]
Contact the author at chris@gizmodo.com.