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Others have implied that Amazon contains far worse than uncritical literary buffoons; Cornell professor Trevor Pinch, discovered systemic corruption within the ranks of top 1,000 Amazon reviewers, many of whom are given perks for good reviews or abstaining from bad ones.
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As one of those top 1,000 Amazon reviewers, I have to say that I've never been offered any type of perks for writing a good review or for abstaining from writing a bad one. I don't get any perks at all, other than the opportunity to keep whatever item I am reviewing. Nor have I ever gotten any commentary from Amazon regarding my reviews or any attempt to influence them. I haven't been personally contacted by any of the publishers or companies involved with offers of perks either.
There are games that are played there, with some reviewers negative-voting some reviews that appear to be gaining popularity in order to hopefully get their own review into the "Most Helpful" section instead. But that's the same kind of thing that happens in office politics and life itself by folks who are ego-driven. I've got a review up for a toothbrush that covered all the necessary points and gave my opinion of it, yet someone gave that review a negative vote. First of all, who is paying that much attention to a toothbrush review of one that isn't even yet on the market, unless it's someone who is trying to position their own review higher in the queue? It's stuff like that that goes on there.