[WesternWind]

Actually that's covered by the rule.

Buying Positive or Negative Reviews: The final rule prohibits businesses from providing compensation or other incentives conditioned on the writing of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, either positive or negative. It clarifies that the conditional nature of the offer of compensation or incentive may be expressly or implicitly conveyed.

[LinuxBender]

I hope this is actively enforced with real teeth very soon. I 1-star fake products and call them out in reviews resulting in the devious vendor somehow being able to send me a postcard to my real physical address offering money for 5 stars. The sham vendor also spam my email weekly. Amazon appears to actively support this process. It needed to be curtailed decades ago.

[burningChrome]

>> The final rule prohibits businesses from providing compensation or other incentives.

Amazon has had this rule in place for a long time and I still get cards in the boxes of the stuff I buy, "Give us a 5 star review and get 30% off your next purchase!"

Clearly Amazon doesn't know about this or isn't generally enforcing it. I'm wondering how the FTC is going to patrol this since Amazon has already had this rule in place for a while and it hasn't dissuaded sellers from changing their habits.

[sokoloff]

> Clearly Amazon doesn't know about this or…

Given that hundreds of people reading this thread have experienced exactly what you’re talking about, I think it’s impossible that Amazon doesn’t know anything about it.

[bluGill]

The FTC can force Amazon to do more about it. Just proving they are trying would be a big help.

[notinmykernel]

Amazon is currently providing a LLM-generated summary of these faked customer reviews. To abide by the FTC ruling, Amazon would now have to prove that all of their training data is legitimate customer reviews. Do you think they will actually do that?

[bluGill]

If the FTC wants to they can. The government as a lot more power than Amazon, the only question is will they use it.

[notinmykernel]

It seems the gift of free AWS cloud services reconciles all harm Amazon continues to do against customers and employees alike. The government will need to locate its backbone.

[bluGill]

The government is not a single entity. those investigating this type of thing are rewarded for success, and are not in any way related to those who would use services.

(as pointed out, it is also illegal for AWS to do that)

[acdha]

That conspiracy theory needs work. The federal government pays billions annually for cloud services and it’s “people go to jail” illegal for the government to accept free services which would otherwise cost money (i.e. the government can use the AWS free tier like everyone else but above that they’re paying like everyone else).

[arealaccount]

The people I've met that leave reviews for free product aren't required to leave any "particular sentiment". They just rely on tacit laws of reciprocity.

[crazygringo]

I've gotten lots of offers of discounts in exchange for a review.

Not one has ever conditioned it on expressing a certain sentiment, rating, or anything at all.

But I think most people feel strongly enough they should leave a positive review in exchange for money. It doesn't even need to be said.