New European Rules To Ban Fake Consumer Blogs And Amazon Reviews
from the always-ways-around-it dept
A few years back, a glitch at Amazon made it clear that plenty of authors were giving their own books anonymous positive reviews. This eventually resulted in Amazon putting in place new policies that tried to ban anonymous reviews. Apparently "fake reviews" like that, as well as fake consumer blogs claiming to be happy customers of a product, will now be banned in Europe. Of course, while it may seem like a good idea to ban fake reviews claiming to be from customers, where to draw the line gets pretty tricky. As is noted in the comments to that article, how do you deal with endorsements from celebrities who have never used the product they're endorsing? Or, what if it's a family member who puts up book review, rather than the author him or herself? It may seem like a good idea, but it seems impossible to really stop the process of fake reviews. Eventually, if stories come out about people or companies putting up fake reviews, it will cause damage to their brands -- and that level of self-regulation seems likely to be more effective than any law. Update: A good comment below suggests that the Times Online (the source of the original article) has got the details wrong, and the directive isn't nearly as bad as described.
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Perhaps its just to make a statement
You don't have to actively look for offenders for a law to be worthwhile - it just gives you a little extra clout when they are found out. Case in point Amazon - they were only found out by *accident*
Hotel reviewers as per the article will still be able to post false reviews but if they are found out will possibly get more of a slap
Self regulation in industry fails far too often in my opinion "Honest we'll regulate ourselves - what's that? you don't like arsenic in your drinking water? eh?"
If this is to become law I thinks its just a case of stating for the record it's not to be done.
Think of it like the question on US entry visas "Are you currently or have you ever been a member of a terrorist organisation?" This would probably be the dumbest question to ask on a visa ever, if it were actually intended to catch terrorists (fair enough you might catch Richard Reid but he's a plank). The actual use of this question as far as I can figure is so that if you answer "no" untruthfully it's another nail in your coffin if you are captured - you just lied to the feds, and can be deported instantly for lying on your visa
In short laws like this are not intended to stamp out a practice on their own, they are intended to make people think twice... "If you do this you are not being a bit naughty or 'using your initiative' - you are breaking the law..."
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No need to enforce , only punish
Just as simple . If a company gets caught , make it pay . No need to waste resources on enforcing it .
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Its perfectly legal to incite terrorism across Europe, I could go to France and stand in the streets yelling Bomb, Bomb, USA but god forbid I try to give a positive review of a book I have never read or a family member wrote - they best lock me up!
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Re:
One is freedom of speech as its basically a valid personal opinion, the other is basically a form of misrepresentation
I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which ;0)
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I'm no fan of a 'fake' review at all, but the sites - if they want to be seen a legitimate - should be responsible for that.
Plus, if the server's in another country, how are they going to police this.
It's just a big problem in general, everytime you turn around some government's saying "you can't say this...."
At what point is the line drawn?
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Site reviews are going to be a dinosaur soon
Case in point, I recently bought an HP printer along with parts for a computer I was building. I'd never been burned by HP before, and they've always had good windows driver support. Turned out though that there were no 64 bit drivers for the printer and HP has no plans to develop 64-bit drivers for any of it's consumer printers. I went to the HP site and found that the printer in question has only 5 star glowing reviews (25 of them). I put in a review warning people about the absence of 64-bit drivers and gave the printer 1 star (since I couldn't use it). My review never showed up. Out of curiosity, I looked at several other HP products I owned and found that none of them had bad reviews. I tried posting a few more reviews and found that only those with praise of the product would show up.
While it's probably no surprise that a company would set up a review system that only allowed praise for their products, it doesn't stretch too far to think that a retailer would do the same, especially if they were given an incentive by the manufacturer to do so (since we all know how ethical manufacturers can be).
Amazon does not seem to be taking an active part in this type of private censorship. I believe they do censor some postings, since companies don't have to abide by free speech (the constitution is to protect people from the government, not private industry), it does make sense that they would want to censor some postings (for example hateful or vulgar content). But, will they some day? Money can be a strong factor. Plus, even eBay's feedback system is subject to fraud.
While the internet has allowed people to expand the reach of their opinion and to extend the ability for information flow, the best bet people still have is to rely on the opinions of those they know and trust.
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Soon, you'll see websites getting sued because it was a 'fake' review. Oh, I bought a new book and didn't like it - it was supposed to be fiction but it doesn't seem like fiction at all.
But then, I really like the idea of Government telling me what to do, what to think, what to eat, what to believe, what to not believe, where I should work, when I should rest, what kinda of car to drive, what kinda of clothes I should wear, who I should sleep with, how to spend my leisure time, who I should accept, who I should reject...
So yes, government should tell me what reviews are fake and which are true. I will believe it, of course; since it's law.
But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for several seconds on the screen, as though the impact that it had made on everyone's eyeballs was too vivid to wear off immediately. The little sandyhaired woman had flung herself forward over the back of the chair in front of her. With a tremulous murmur that sounded like 'My Saviour!' she extended her arms towards the screen. Then she buried her face in her hands. It was apparent that she was uttering a prayer.
Yes... Government... our Saviour!
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EU Censorship
The great blessing of freedom of speech is that it requires us to think critically about things we hear and read. We have the opportunity to be more than zombies digesting the pre-approved scripts of the authorities.
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Still think its a valid move
Sorry I don't get this "The nasty government is telling me what to do all the time" tripe
It's not like a law like this is telling you not to do something reasonable - they aren't telling you not to do something you enjoy or that should reasonably be interpretted as a right. They are telling you that it is unacceptable to be deliberatly misleading when selling a product
That seems fair to me and it is their job after all - writing laws and all (its one of the things you pay/elect them for)
No this is not going to be any substitute for consumers common sense - not much will be, ever. But this is saying that fake testimonials are bad
I would assume in the above HP example it would be deemed that by only publishing positive feedback they are breaking this, again this seems fair to me
No this won't be effective for companies with offices outside a country (I don't think it would actually matter where the actual server is based), but just because something won't fix ALL the problems in a system doesn't mean it shouldn't be used to try to address some of them
That is if this is even a law (ref post 2)
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stupid..
Of course this article is probably just to spread FUD since it's entirely unenforceable.
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While they're at it
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not a big deal
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One step at a time, my friend - just wait until it's a law regarding something you are fond of.
A new one everyday, isn't there? And none seem to give anyone *more* rights. Unless it's a corporation or the government - they are getting more rights all the time.
They are telling you that it is unacceptable to be deliberatly misleading when selling a product
And no, the law is far from reasonible. Who's to say if the review is really fake or not? Who will make that determination? And so what if it's decided in court 12 months after it was posted - how did that help anyone who read it and already purchased or did not purchase the item?
Afterall the 'review' of a book is 'objective', right? Or is someone applying a mentality that it should be 'subjective'. Or are they saying what you should and shouldn't like - just because you don't like a book won't mean I won't like it either.
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Fake reviews
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A Typical EU Official...
Maybe noone should be able to legislate about the internet unless they have sufficinet technical knowledge to operate the Helldesk in the BOFH stories.
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Re:
I will and I do, Your logic seems to be that all laws should be fought regardless of worth as some might be bad? My logic is to only fight ones which I deem unjust or wrong - I don't see anything wrong with saying that being deliberatly misleading in an ad is against the law
And no, the law is far from reasonible. Who's to say if the review is really fake or not? Who will make that determination?
If it goes to court a jury of my peers would make this decision in the same way that they would for other laws, by weighing the evidence and assessing reasonable doubt.
And so what if it's decided in court 12 months after it was posted - how did that help anyone who read it and already purchased or did not purchase the item?
Same goes for any law - How does the prosecution of a murderer benefit the victim? It doesn't, it protects the rest of society from future attacks from the same perpetrator and hopefully discourages people from breaking the law in the first place - not all laws are enacted just to give the victim the ability to pocket cash
After all the 'review' of a book is 'objective', right? Or is someone applying a mentality that it should be 'subjective'. Or are they saying what you should and shouldn't like - just because you don't like a book won't mean I won't like it either.
Nope - its a review, a valid opinion either way an honest individuals ability to be subjective is not important and could not be legislated anyway. What the law (if it even exists) is saying as far as I understand is that posing as a customer and writing false reviews and/or hosting sites with review systems which are designed to be used in this way is wrong - and saying this is wrong seems right to me
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Worse than Banning Fakes--Banning Real Ones...
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faking
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