Amazon has announced that it’s taking legal action against group admins of more than 10,000 Facebook groups. According to the e-commerce company, groups on Facebook have been generating fake Amazon reviews in return for money or free products, leading to distorted ratings on Amazon products.
Commenting on the action, Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s vice president of Selling Partner Services, said:
“Our teams stop millions of suspicious reviews before they’re ever seen by customers, and this lawsuit goes a step further to uncover perpetrators operating on social media. Proactive legal action targeting bad actors is one of many ways we protect customers by holding bad actors accountable.”
One of the groups that Amazon is going after is called “Amazon Product Review”. Until it was taken down by Meta, it had 43,000 members who would be directed to products to leave a rating. Leaving fake reviews is prohibited by Amazon and hires 12,000 people to prevent this fraud and abuse. These investigators report the groups to the relevant companies, who can take action. Meta, for example, has received more than 10,000 reports from Amazon and has acted on half of them.
Hopefully, Amazon’s legal action will lead to the removal of fake reviews on its website. This should lead to a better experience for shoppers looking for quality products.