[janlin1999]

> obtain opt-in consent from the person or business being reviewed

Do you feel the same for public figures who don't want to be covered by the media? If not, why?

I do think there are a number of issues with online reviews, but in the absence of other data (which might sometimes be available but might also be hidden by the businesses/institutions themselves), online reviews frequently turn out to be much better than nothing. This can be particularly true for infrequent but meaningful transactions (e.g. large financial cost or affecting one's health).

Disclosure: I run a website that hosts reviews.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> Do you feel the same for public figures who don't want to be covered by the media? If not, why?

They already do that. They generally have a PR dept., or work with PR consultants. They pick and choose who they want to be their heralds. Apple is notorious for ghosting publications that don't kiss their butts.

Go to any Web site for a public figure, band, movie, game, corporation, what-have-you, and you'll inevitably see a top-level link, labeled "Press," or "Media."

This is their controlled and vetted material that is designed specifically to be distributed far and wide, and the PR people will use that as the fodder they send out.

Reviews (real ones) are wonderful. There was a brief window of time, when they were trustworthy. Amazon reviews actually gave you accurate information, and my wife used Angie's List to find some outstanding contractors, for work on our house.

Now, the whole industry is in the shitter. I'm so sorry that you have to deal with this.

I can't seem to find real reviews for anything, these days. Even trusted review sites have been corrupted.

The corruption ranges from badley-speld mass junk "fillers," to focused, vile, anti-competitive attacks, or petty, personal attacks, like trolling (I had one jerk from this site that got upset at me, leave a 1-star, insulting, weird review on one of my iOS apps. It was so bad, that I think it got nuked by Apple. I think I'm the only one that can see it), to brought-and-paid-for, completely legal, reviews on well-known publications.

I like to use an example of noise-canceling headphones. The names will be redacted to protect the guilty, and keep them off my ass.

There's one brand that has absolutely miraculous active noise cancelling. Switching on ANC makes me feel as if I've gone deaf. The sound quality is also excellent. I'm not an audiophile, but audiophiles won't use any ANC headphones.

There's nothing else out there, that I have found comes close. I own a bunch of ANC headphones, and can attest to this.

Yet, they seldom come up as a top choice, in many reviews. Instead, another corporation, that has good headphones, but a much less effective ANC, keeps topping certain review sites. If I switch on that brand's ANC, I still hear plenty of background noise, and I don't think the sound quality is as good. I actually fell for one of those "These are the best" reviews on a site that I [used to] trust.

Sadly, I think that we are forced to go back to what we had before there were reviews on product pages, or on sites.

Caveat Emptor.

[janlin1999]

> They already do that. They generally have a PR dept., or work with PR consultants. They pick and choose who they want to be their heralds.

There's a big difference between denying access and prohibiting coverage. A news outlet can still publish an unflattering expose of a company, even if the outlet will no longer get invited to the company's press events. exabrial seems to suggest that no one can write anything negative about a business or person unless that entity opts in, which is closer to prohibiting coverage.

[mrtranscendence]

> The names will be redacted to protect the guilty, and keep them off my ass.

Do you think Apple/Sony/Bose (or whoever it is) will send agents after you if you criticize them openly?

[ChrisMarshallNY]

No, I just like to make a habit of not saying things negative about specific brands or people, in general.

In the above post, I basically hint that a well-known brand, astroturfs reviews. I know that happens, because I've seen it in action, "behind the scenes." I'd rather leave things vague.

I try to keep my postings fairly positive and civil. Lots of others are much more able to do the criticism.

[Beltalowda]

I'd be very interested in knowing which ANC headphones these are (the ones with better ANC than most/all others).

[yourapostasy]

> There's one brand…

Can you please share the positive brand?

[hermitdev]

If I'd hazard a guess, I'd say the OP is referring to Bose. They tend to get shit on by audiophiles for... Reasons? I don't really know why, I'm not an audiophile. I've personally had 3 different Bose noise canceling headphones, 2 over ear and one on ear, and I've been happy with all of them. I still use the in ear ones routinely (QC35, IIRC), usually without the noise canceling on, even. The in ear noise canceling is quite good. Good enough I wouldn't recommend walking down the street with it on - you will be audibly oblivious to your surroundings.

[andylynch]

I think Bose has always been an outsider in the audiophile community due to their more innovative and less ‘purist’ approach. Re: their noise cancelling headphones- I understand that for many years their aviation headsets have been the market leaders in large part due to this feature and this transfers down to their consumer headsets.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Well, I'd rather not, because, then, it would be pretty simple to figure out which other brand I'm not-so-positive about, but it is one of the priciest, and they don't advertise much (and probably also don't butter up reviewers much).