Amazon has never disclosed how products get its iconic “Amazon’s Choice” black label, which puts them top billing on the ecommerce service. US senators Richard Blumenthal and Bob Menendez sent a letter this week to Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO) asking more info on the elite segmentation. The pair lifted worries that the tag might be unintentionally tricking users into purchasing inferior goods via fake reviews.
“We are worried that the badge is allocated in an arbitrary way, or worse, on the basis of fake product reviews. While, we know that Amazon has taken measures earlier to deal with fake reviews—the issue persists—and Amazon might be exacerbating the issue by actively marketing goods with fraudulent reviews,” claimed the senators. A list of queries wanted specific info on how goods get chosen for the program, comprising whether a method is notifying Amazon’s decision-making and if goods are reviewed by people to make sure they are of high quality.
A latest media probe disclosed how many inferior products by Amazon Choice thrived on a number of misleading or fake reviews. These goods comprised an AmazonBasics Security Safe that can be opened easily with a tool and a flask that converted alcohol black.
On a related note, the FTC earlier resolved its first ever case over paid false reviews on a retail platform. In the complaint by the agency, it blamed Cure Encapsulations Inc. (Amazon seller) and Naftula Jacobowitz (its owner) of paying amazonverifiedreviews.com to post and write false feedback for its weight-loss goods. Moreover, the FTC blamed the firm of making unconfirmed claims for the weight-loss supplements (garcinia cambogia) it used to sell. As per the commission, Jacobowitz informed the false review supplier that his product requires to have an average 4.3 rating out of 5 stars to sell.