Submitted 3 weeks ago by lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/546d7faf-a850-47a7-8728-bbd4c585fb95.png
Happened to me when I saw a book on the US site, I wasn’t able to see all reviews, but there was a button to sort-of “apply” to get approved for seeing all of them.
It took five days, then I got this email.
Interestingly, they’re not doing this on the European site, you can still see all reviews there.
Thanks for confirming! That’s the box I saw as well, after clicking on it it said I will get an email in five business days - and it really took the whole five days.
If you want to try it out yourself: This is the book where it happened. Despite that email I can see all of the reviews again, so maybe it’s a feature they’re testing out.
It’s really shady to have a rating system and hide ratings within that system. Why have it at all then?
Remember Amazon is owned by a billionaire or someone who is a part of the sociopathic class. They only want you to buy they don’t give a shit about what you care about just pressing that buy now button. The laws are supposed to force them to care about the shit we care about but, everyone on this planet in politics is a corporate shill so tough luck.
If you’re talking about Bezos, he only owns 9% (or possibly even less now) of Amazon.
Maybe it's lazy on my end, but my first guess is that it would be in order to prioritize and normalize the AI summary. Basically a dystopic move towards trust me bro
feature
“To improve the user experience we are hiding things that were one of the primary reasons we became a monopoly.”
To manipulate the market, is the only answer I can come up with. Why else would they do this?
Making their massive collection of reviews only available to their shitty AI, I would suppose.
For what it’s worth, I’m in the US Amazon app on Android and it states “96 customer reviews”.
Once I unchecked the box requiring verified purchases, it does in fact show 96 reviews.
I just checked and it looked normal on my end as well.
I don’t see it anymore either. Might be they’re testing out this feature and not all users get to see it.
I’d bet this is a move to prevent their reviews from being used to train competing AI systems.
Write product reviews using Amazon reviews
Cognitive dark foresty
Or possibly if a product gets a lot of reviews in a short time, to prevent review bombing
Like Steam does :p ?
Et least it’s opt out I think but still…
I’ve used Amazon for many years. I hadn’t written a lot of reviews. Recently I’ve been getting a lot of shitty products. So I started writing bad reviews. Maybe others are doing the same now too.
There’s a lot of fakes mixed in with regular inventory because individual sellers can send their products to have Amazon fulfill orders for them and Amazon just mixes inventory all together. This is why I don’t buy a lot of name brand stuff from Amazon, especially things like shampoo as you don’t know what you’re getting.
They did actually stop co-mingling lately
Lots of their electronics options are these really TEMU-tier garbage specs with half a mile of promotional material between the “Buy” button and the details/reviews.
You really need to know what you’re trying to buy, how to use the filters to screen out the crap, and even then its a gamble. Amazing to feel the temptation to just go to Best Buy.
Best Buy is great. They have this thing called a “store”, which I guess is what they use to store all the products? Anyway, you can just drive there and they ship the product directly into your hands! It’s crazy. I hope it catches on.
I try to review everything positive or negative because I rely on reviews. I’ve been banned from reviewing, and I pay for prime. Wtf. They say I’ve done suspicious activity or violated review terms, but won’t let me see previous reviews, and won’t let me appeal. Bull crap.
The only thing I can think i did is, do you know you’re not allowed to include in the review anything about shipping or packaging? You’re only allowed to review the product itself. So if you let others know your item came broken due to poor packaging, that’s a violation of terms. I don’t even remember doing that, but it’s the only rule I can imagine myself breaking!
There has been tons of products with fake reviews for over a decade as well by now.
I remember back when Amazon was a source for trustworthy products in the earlier days. Then they let the shady sellers in. Then they hid the country of origin. Then allowed fake reviews. And now they’re hiding the reviews they don’t like? Why would anyone want to purchase anything from that site at that point?
Interestingly, they’re not doing this on the European site, you can still see all reviews there.
I wonder why this might be…
How bout you don’t use fucking Amazon.
There is a lot of stuff where it’s hard to find alternatives to Amazon, but books aren’t really one of those items. Ditch Amazon, support your local book store. Your prime membership pays for Jeff Bezos’ next helicopter ride while his employees are pissing in bottles during shift or just lying around dead somewhere
I’ll hop on down to my local electronics store and buy my ICs and custom li-ion batteries.
thanks!
Here in the UK they’ll sometimes remove negative reviews as “off topic” anyway.
Reviews? Can’t trust 'em.
Stores everywhere…it’s time to cut out the middleman (again). Getting an ecommerce website is not rocket science anymore.
They already only show positive reviews unless you login
Wooooooow. This is some of the biggest bs i’ve ever seen.
AI prevention?
Interesting. See, what I did to make sure this doesn’t happen is I simply stopped using amazon years ago
Pathetic.
I saw the same restriction on the Swedish site
Amazon becoming like the Superstore.
They’ve been under pressure in the EU to tackle fake reviews. Might be something to do with that.
Maybe because most Americans don’t like to read and reviews are useless.
MrNesser@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
EU laws probably prevent them from doing shady shit like this.
Hiding a review just makes me not want to buy it
lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
I also think they’re more cautious about the EU. There are less consumer protection laws in the US, so they get fucked first.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
We don’t really have less laws. Just far less enforcement mechanisms. For instance I am supposed to be able to use my own modem, the FCC rules prevent ATT from forcing me to rent a modem. But the FCC hasn’t given a shit about anything since the 80s. So ATT forces me to rent a modem. Laws are only as good as their enforcement.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
I’m in the US. Not once have I seen or even heard of this happening before.
I’m guessing it’s something only being done to the EU when trying to look at Amazon from other countries, or just when looking at other Amazon’s outside your own country.
Malyca@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Wish I could go live in the EU
rapchee@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
you can
MrNesser@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Just find an opportunity and go
Kjell@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I don’t think there are any EU laws on how companies needs to handle customer reviews. But maybe it should be.