[thaumasiotes]

> Does it mask the company later subbing in a cheapened, shittier version a few months later to float on the large number of five star reviews? Yes.

What does that have to do with the proposed rule? There is a rule against substituting in an unrelated product to get credit for reviews that were originally written for something else. Making a new batch of your product that is cheaper and worse than the old batch is allowed.

[ceejayoz]

> The Federal Trade Commission proposed a new rule to stop marketers from using illicit review and endorsement practices such as using fake reviews, suppressing honest negative reviews, and paying for positive reviews, which deceive consumers looking for real feedback on a product or service and undercut honest businesses.

> Review Hijacking: Businesses would be prohibited from using or repurposing a consumer review written for one product so that it appears to have been written for a substantially different product. The FTC recently brought its first review hijacking enforcement action.

The scenario is explicitly part of the new rule, even if you'd otherwise have given it a five star review.

They're not giving you free products just for fun. One of the reasons is to get hundreds or thousands of good reviews

[thaumasiotes]

The scenario is not part of the new rule. Review Hijacking refers to transferring reviews from one product to an unrelated product, not transferring reviews from one product to the same product assembled on a different manufacturing line. The new version of the product may be obviously worse, but it is not a substantially different product.

[ceejayoz]

I've seen products get shitty enough in a subsequent production run to easily qualify as "substantially different".

The parent poster describes a chain of six free products. They're clearly not doing this as a charity exercise.