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As a side note, there is some evidence/rumor that now the number of reviews can help with whether Amazon chooses a book for more visibility. Books with over 100 reviews can POSSIBLY/RUMOR cause a better ranking/more hebought/shebought shows. This is also true on GR and was before Amazon bought GR (the CEO/owner mentioned it during a speech a few years back).
Reviews have played a part for a long time in whether certain blogs would allow an author to take out an ad. For example, in the past, to get listed on DailyCheapReads, a minimum of 5 reviews was required. (Dailycheapreads no longer takes any kind of submissions for ads or otherwise). A couple of other sites used to require 10 reviews and a 4.2 average. This sort of thing contributed to the plethora of fake reviews.
If Amazon really does have some cutoff/benefit to getting 100 reviews (and there are always people tracking/watching/gaming) they will only be making the problem worse by sending out notices to people claiming "you are a friend of the author so we won't publish the review."
I think their reviews have become less relevant to readers in the last two or three years. This action is not going to help their cause because it's impossible for them to take down all the fake reviews and they will take down some real ones in the process.
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