Amazon sues over 1000 fake reviewers

Amazon is an American electronic commerce and cloud computing company based in Seattle, Washington.

It was founded on 5 July 1994 by Jeff Bezos, an American entrepreneur and investor.

Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, later diversifying to sell video games, electronics, etc.

Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the United States by market capitalization in 2015.

Amazon had sued four sites that pay people to write fake reviews.

Buyazonreviews.com, buyamazonreviews.com, bayreviews.net and buyreviewsnow.com were the 4 sites that were sued.

The retail giant accused the the sites of trademark infringement and violations of local consumer protection statutes.

Amazon said it had verified its allegations by privately paying one of the services to write reports about products.

Amazon began cracking down fake reviewers using a high-tech tool; they started to weed out phony reviews and made sure that customers were not cheated.

The company said they were using a software to lower the rank of reviews that don't match purchase history and that are voted down by readers.

Sharp customers had noticed that Amazon is full of fishy reviews.

Bogus reviewers identified themselves as British girls to write fake reviews either to boost sales or sabotage businesses with negative reviews.

Books on Amazon were being pushed to top of bestseller lists by fake reviews.

Fake reviews prompted a fear that consumers were misled by reviews of everything from electronics to home appliances.

Amazon said they were trying to close down fake reviewer accounts.

Online retail giant Amazon had filed a lawsuit against 1,114 defendants who offer a false review service for a small amount of $5 on the website Fiverr.com.

Amazon said that though the reviews are small in number, they can significantly undermine the trust that consumers and sellers place in Amazon.

The company had observed during an investigation that fake reviewers hid their identity.