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Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
Actually, my only beef is that there is no excuse to troll into people's privacy for the sake of perhaps finding a few bogus reviews. If any company is going to lurk on FB or GR or blogs or whatnot in the hopes of determining whether a review was done by a friend or relatives, I don't appreciate that kind of action from a company where I do business--or leave reviews. Such invasive action fails to work so the invasion of the privacy is for naught.
Now I've read all the arguments about people don't care or they shouldn't post private information and so on. While that is all true, I do not agree with the policy of companies intruding simply because they can. It's especially onerous because such invasion doesn't work the majority of the time.
I think it is entirely possible that companies could come up with a review system that would work. I think it could be done without lurking about the web like some kind NSA spy. Their current way is probably the easiest, cheapest and most invasive. I get that they are trying to make money so I understand the implementation. I just happen to disagree with the method.
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You've said at least twice that whatever "invasive" action Amazon took to bar the review from that indie author, it doesn't work. But you have no basis for saying that, unless you know the extent of the problem Amazon had with bogus reviews of that nature. I doubt you know. So you can't say that.
Perhaps this was a bigger problem than anyone is aware of, and so they adopted aggressive measures to combat it. Maybe it's working spectacularly well. If a few reviewers who are honest get deleted, what's the big problem? The reviews exist not for the benefit of the reviewers or to make them feel good, but to help consumers make better informed choices.
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Companies value reviews because they are free recommendations and the companies don't have to pay to get the input. Consumers value the reviews when they believe there is no ulterior motive behind the reviews. That's becoming more difficult to obtain. I just don't care for the choices these companies are making to achieve their goal.
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Companies welcome the reviews insofar as they put out a good product. Generally, if they put out a bad product, then the reviews will be bad and hurt sales, and I doubt the company welcomes the reviews.
As for it being more difficult to obtain honest reviews today, I disagree. In fact, I think this whole thread is proving otherwise. The abuse of the review system was likely far greater in the past and before they implemented more advanced steps to weed out the bogus reviewers.
--Pat