Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by burningChrome 601 days ago
>> 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.
2 comments
sokoloff 601 days ago
> 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.

link
bluGill 601 days ago
The FTC can force Amazon to do more about it. Just proving they are trying would be a big help.
link
notinmykernel 601 days ago
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?
link
bluGill 601 days ago
If the FTC wants to they can. The government as a lot more power than Amazon, the only question is will they use it.
link
notinmykernel 601 days ago
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.
link
bluGill 600 days ago
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)

link
acdha 601 days ago
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).
link
notinmykernel 600 days ago
It's not a conspiracy theory. It's business as usual for AWS. I'm all for righteousness but that's not applicable to the US Government and DOJ. People are bought and sold all the time.
link