Amazon Drops Its Controversial Review Incentive Program
Until recently, Amazon’s review system allowed a deceptively biased loophole: users could receive free products from companies in exchange for an “honest” review. They were still pretty biased , so Amazon is ditching them.
From now on, Amazon will no longer allow reviews from customers who have received free products in exchange for reviews, regardless of how they are tagged. However, there is one key exception: the Amazon Vine program . With Vine, Amazon is directly simplifying the review process, which the company at least believes helps eliminate bias as Amazon will not deliberately select reviewers who give good reviews. Likewise, reviewers are less likely to worry that their free ride will be disabled if they give a bad review on an Amazon Vine product. At least that’s the idea.
Another important exception is books. Publishers are still allowed to send preview copies to reviewers, as they were long before Amazon. Beyond books, however, you should see fewer of these promotional reviews in the future. As for the ones that already exist, Amazon says it will only remove existing reviews if they are “excessive” or not in line with existing policies. So pay attention to the dates in these reviews.
Updating customer reviews | Amazon via TechCrunch