Disturbing news on Amazon ratings
Posted by Curt Hibbs Fri, 31 Mar 2006 22:27:00 GMT
If this is true, then its really disturbing. I want to be able to rely on user ratings at Amazon, but if they are artificially skewed by eliminating negative comments, then these ratings will lose my trust.
Of course, one story does not make for a systemic pattern, but this has raise a red flag for me and I will be watching for corroboration.
That is definitely unsettling. I’ve been a pretty loyal Amazon customer and often have relied on the customer ratings for guidance.
Hopefully it’s just one isolated incident, but if it is common pattern, then Amazon might have a serious problem. I would most likely take my business to bn.com and other sites.
I can sympathize with Amazon here.
The (review) author admits he hasn’t read the book, therefore his commentary is not a book review, it is a disagreement with the conclusions of the (book) author.
The review author is probably 100% correct, but Amazon doesn’t want to get in the business of moderating discussions on conclusions reached by authors of the products they sell.
Amazon sells books. Wanna talk about the subject matter of a book? Great, find a forum, put it on your blog, whatever.
Imagine if they allowed subject matter discussions of things like evolution…it’s just not a place they want to go. I don’t blame them.