Harm Posed By Fake Reviews
This article discusses how Amazon has seen an influx of fake reviews for several products on their website in the past several months and is expanding its campaign to eliminate these fake reviews. Amazon has currently launched a lawsuit against over 1,000 of these fake product reviewers because these reviews violate their terms of use. These reviews are extremely harmful because they completely mislead Amazon’s customers and provide false information.
These reviews cause an information cascade of very biased information and the customers who read and consider these reviews are extremely influenced by them. Customer reviews can make or break a product, and something as simple as the rating on a website can either deter or encourage customers heavily in their decision to purchase a product. The reviews effectively change crowd behavior for information-based reasons. By reading the reviews, customers are more informed about the behavior of other people who have bought the product and how their experience has been and individuals are more inclined to imitate the behavior of others. Overall, fake reviews are extremely detrimental because of the false information they send out and this lawsuit is an important step for Amazon to retain its credibility.
Source: http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/18/technology/amazon-lawsuit-fake-reviews/