'Fakespot' Removed From Apple's App Store After Complaint From Amazon [Updated]

[jclardy]

Ok. This is a pretty dumb take.

1. If a web browser "wrapped" websites, wouldn't Safari also be in violation of the rules?

2. Browsers don't "wrap" websites - they serve websites, an important distinction. This app essentially displayed Amazon with augmented code and injected attributes. Amazon did not grant them a license to use their website/service for this. Once again, back to my Apple Store example - do you think Apple would grant permission for an app to do the same to their online store?

3. Apple does not allow alternative browser engines on the platform. You can either use Safari WebView/WebKit, or nothing. So by Apple's own rules, there isn't an alternative to using their built in web view and wrapper to show any web content on iDevices.

Safari isn’t on the App Store in any real capacity, so no need to follow the rules.

And yes, browsers serve websites. The fakespot used a Safari web view to “serve” amazon.com, just with their additional overlay. Do you use an ad blocker? Same concept. Modifying a website against the will of the original creator. Chrome on iOS intercepts user account details to store in its password manager. Is that a security concern? Yes, but hand waved away because it is google. iOS 15 is bringing full browser extensions to iOS, so this is really all moot because fakespot will have their full safari extension available on iOS.

So my point is, why block it on the App Store?

 

[mariusignorello]

The thing is, it's not just fake/influenced reviews on Amazon - it's EVERYWHERE.

Your Google search results? Pretty much every top spot for 'best X' is from SEO optimization and total garbage.

Those products youtubers are recommending to you? Paid ad spots are essentially bribed with free products.

Reddit used to be a good source of information, but lately there is a ton of fake feedback. Some of them are obvious and you can ignore, but I fear the reviews/comments that were written very authentically that were actually fake.

At some point here I think trusted individuals will have a lot of value where we can go to them as authorities. Particularly cranky, critical, negative ones that are willing to dig into the flaws and not fear losing sponsorships or free stuff.

That last point about trusted reviewers is interesting. I’ve posted a number of critical opinions online and often times get nothing but hate, downvotes and name calling, so I’ve chosen to stop doing it. The hive mindset is what drives those trusted reviewers away, so as long as people continue to groupthink, those real reviews will be hard to come by. Ridicule people enough and eventually they stop caring to help, but some people are too ignorant and selfish to understand that.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Ridicule people enough and eventually they stop caring to help, but some people are too ignorant and selfish to understand that.

That's how I feel in some threads here on the site.

You can't really have too many opinions that aren't some variation on "APPLE IS AMAZING!!" without the RDF cult coming for you. It's a sad state of affairs.

 

[Solomani]

What I can’t understand is why anyone would rely too much on user reviews on retail sites like Amazon. I see items given 1 star because the package was dinged by UPS. WTH, that has nothing to do with the product. I see 5 stars and lots of gushing because the product looks shiny and cool. That has nothing to do with functionality. I see way too many reviews that are obviously coerced by an exchange of money. In other words, I see more useless reviews than helpful reviews. It simply takes too long to filter out all the garbage to get to honest and helpful reviews. I have better luck finding useful reviews via internet searching.

The majority of dissatisfied reviewers are dingbats who don’t understand the difference between the quality/satisfaction of their received products, versus that product arriving dinged or damaged because the FEDEX guy recklessly threw the package on the porch.

 

[Gasu E.]

Lots of great reviews for ALL the top caskets!



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Probably many are from "Verified Users".

 

[Solomani]

Probably many are from "Verified Users".

I only trust verified reviews of coffins and caskets from dead people who have been using the product for at least 30 days.

 

[Gasu E.]

I agree that reviews of that caliber are worthless. And sadly, Amazon is replete with such reviews. I may have to go back to reading robot views. At least they were more cogent.

I frequently receive offers from Amazon sellers I buy products from, to get an Amazon gift card in exchange for a 5 star review.

 

[Gasu E.]

I got nailed by a scammer that stole my credit card details and started ordering crap I didn’t want and sending it to me. It’s part of a scam to boost order number and be able to get “verified purchaser” reviews for crap. It was a spot of work to get it straightened out. Amazon’s got a real problem with these sorts of things and I don’t know how they’d solve it. I can imagine that they don’t want apps like this to highlight the problem.

Yeah, that didn't happen. First, it takes one phone call to cancel a stolen credit card. Second, the "verified purchase" scam is real, but it requires hacking an Amazon account, not stealing a credit card. Stealing a credit card is completely irrelevant to this scam; and in fact counterproductive, as the cardholder would be highly motivated to kill the scam, cancel the card, return the items, and modify the review. It happened to my wife with a long-abandoned account, and did not cost us a dime. We just ended up with useless, pointless free stuff on our doorstop until Amazon finally responded to our suggestions that they kill the account.

 

[Gasu E.]

Sure. Unwanted stuff starts showing up at your house and the first thing you do is log in to Amazon and leave a positive review. And it keeps showing up because you never report fraud or cancel the card. Riiiiiiight. We believe you. No, really.

LOL. Of course it didn't happen to him. My wife was a "target" (definitely NOT a "victim") of the unwanted product/fake review scam, and that's not how it works at all. The target doesn't get charged at all, they just use an Amazon account with your name (maybe an old abandoned account), and legitimately pay for the stuff. We ended up with tons of free, useless crap on our doorstep before we got Amazon to halt it. The only "cost" to us was the effort we put in to tear the packaging apart, before we disposed of everything, as we recycle religiously.

 

[Digital Dude]

Lots of great reviews for ALL the top caskets!



View attachment 1807322

No way I would buy one of these unless it includes a lifetime warranty.

 

[One2Grift]

Amazon is protecting their domain (not the Amazon.com domain, their proverbial domain). They'll have a room full of lawyers that will scour Apple's App Store TOS if/when they think their is an issue. Apple is a bit up against it here. They could say 'Screw you amazon' but you can be sure Amazon and Apple are swell pals (biggest internet retailer + biggest tech consumer electronics = swell pals on that level). Apple is going to side with Amazon unless their is a compelling biz reason. An up and comer small-by app developer that is about uncovering the Amazon rating fakery ain't a million miles within compelling biz reason for Apple.

As another said, there is two sides to this coin. Yes, Amazon review farming is atrocious but the other side is small retailers on Amazon able to be severely harmed by the fakery too.

Sounds like the app developer is trying to better monetize the app. Totally understandable but you are taking on the 8 million pound gorilla in the room, Amazon. They're going to have to adapt to keep Amazon's attention elsewhere. Just the cold hard truth...

 

[One2Grift]

Because, for the average person looking for instant gratification, doing a DuckDuckGo or Google search is waay too hard and may end up bringing forward information that says they shouldn’t order. Better just to order, say the Amazon reviewers were fake, and then get a few thousand upvotes on the social media of your choice just by hating on something

This should be at a sticky at the top of every site that gives feedback on companies' products (or social media websites).

IME most people believe reviews (and what they read on posting sites ). Troll farming reviews and social media (bots) works. And that is because people are too damned lazy to do a web search along with a modicum of reading. And if some of them can be pushed to do this, they use Google and don't get past page 1, hits 1 and 2 (not as bad but still too manipulating). One is going to buy a 100 dollar device? take 10 lousy minutes to type in DDG.com, search for your product (or knowledge point), click past page 1 of the hits results. Always sort reviews by worst. Sort by the worst and look for the tale signs -- sort by the best and look for the tell tale signs.

Another great step: go do a DDG on troll farming and bots. See the leaked directives, see the methodology and playbook, the Govs, orgs, corps all doing it. Take just 60 minutes one evening to read and arm yourself with a foundation knowledge base that allows one to spot and avoid the manipulation noise.

 

[rp100]

Amazon can be very rough to browse if you don’t know the exact brand and product you wish to purchase. I feel like I spend a disproportionate amount of energy ensuring I don’t get screwed: payola reviews pushing items to the top, switcheroo product pages where a high-rating product is replaced with a totally different item (i.e. people praising an orange juicer in the reviews for a phone charger), multiples of an identical product all with different chinglish brand names (Goodwow, Blazeleft, HuungLo, YuSukYumYum), and every third item in the search results is an advert. Entire businesses are modeled around buying items on Alibaba, having the manufacturer apply custom labeling and packaging, and shipping pallets directly to an Amazon warehouse. The only time the “business” touches the product is to see the original sample. Rest assured, all the people who received a free copy will give a fair and honest review.


If you haven’t done so already, disable auto-renew on your prime account (assuming you have prime). When it expires, s how long it takes before you find it absolutely necessary to buy in for another year. Worried about Christmas season shipping? You can pay for one month of prime when you know you’re doing heavy shopping. Otherwise, shipping is still free for orders over $25. And don’t forget - many manufacturers sell their products on their own website.

 

[turbineseaplane]

If you haven’t done so already, disable auto-renew on your prime account (assuming you have prime). When it expires, s how long it takes before you find it absolutely necessary to buy in for another year.

It's a great suggestion.

I see why Amazon works so hard to keep people on Prime.

A. Just the recurring revenue from Prime is a big deal

B. I noticed that once I wasn't Prime anymore, I basically flat out stopped shopping there at all. At the minimum it quickly shifts away from "the default place to look" and starts opening ones eyes to all the great alternatives out there.

Prime is not just it's own big revenue source, but it mentally keeps its users in a cage and repels them from even thinking about shopping elsewhere, let alone purchasing elsewhere.

Anyone on the fence about Amazon should absolutely drop Prime.

You can always go back if you can't do without.
It might be a very enlightening, if not liberating, experience!

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Whether the app was accurate or not is one thing, but wrapping Amazon’s site in it is a clear violation in that you can’t take someone’s IP and just repackage it. Who knows what else they can or did change in what people see on Amazon’s site. I can see any company being outraged if someone did that to their company.

Doesn't Amazon do exactly this, though?

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm 90% certain that Amazon has a barcode scanning app where you walk into any competitor's store, scan the barcode on any product, and the app pulls up that same product on Amazon.

The only difference between the two is that Amazon's app was co-oping physical stores, while this other app is co-oping Amazon's digital store.

 

[hot-gril]

As nice as this app seems, yeah, it's actually a big security vulnerability.

 

[AdonisSMU]

Amazon has become a cancer on society at this point.

Unbelievably anti competitive, tax avoiding and flooded with knockoffs, fakes and just loads and loads of "junk".

Fake spot is in clear violation of their contract regardless.

 

[AdonisSMU]

Safari isn’t on the App Store in any real capacity, so no need to follow the rules.

And yes, browsers serve websites. The fakespot used a Safari web view to “serve” amazon.com, just with their additional overlay. Do you use an ad blocker? Same concept. Modifying a website against the will of the original creator. Chrome on iOS intercepts user account details to store in its password manager. Is that a security concern? Yes, but hand waved away because it is google. iOS 15 is bringing full browser extensions to iOS, so this is really all moot because fakespot will have their full safari extension available on iOS.

So my point is, why block it on the App Store?

They agreed to the rules. They could’ve made it chrome/android only if they wanted to.

 

[danny842003]

Amazon has become a cancer on society at this point.

Unbelievably anti competitive, tax avoiding and flooded with knockoffs, fakes and just loads and loads of "junk".

I don’t understand why you would be upset with Amazon for avoiding tax. Every business in the world should be avoiding paying tax they don’t have to, it just makes good business sense.
If you want to be upset with companies not paying their fair share it’s governments that deserve your ire.

 

[riber79]

Lots of great reviews for ALL the top caskets!

One "Overnight Casket” please - in plywood (I plan to rise again, after a few days


Love and kisses
Messiah

 

[msp3]

What's in it for Fakespot? I suspect it injects its affiliate links into anything you view on Amazon and makes a commission that way in a parasitic fashion. Frankly, Amazon should shut them down as an affiliate if they really wanted to deal with these people

 

[I7guy]

That's how I feel in some threads here on the site.

You can't really have too many opinions that aren't some variation on "APPLE IS AMAZING!!" without the RDF cult coming for you. It's a sad state of affairs.

The opposite problem also exists. Negative posts without any real sudden substance (which a lot of them are) get upvoted. It is a sad state of affairs as MR in that aspect is similar to Amazon.

 

[I7guy]

I mean, I applaud their intentions to seek out fake reviews but why can't they simply web scrape and use AI or machine learning? Starting with repeated reviews for example?

Taking on some big fish here. Apple also has a fake review problem. Maybe this made them tetchy, opening a can of worms.

What fake review problem does apple have? Can you quantify and be specific?

 

[I7guy]

Doesn't Amazon do exactly this, though?

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm 90% certain that Amazon has a barcode scanning app where you walk into any competitor's store, scan the barcode on any product, and the app pulls up that same product on Amazon.

The only difference between the two is that Amazon's app was co-oping physical stores, while this other app is co-oping Amazon's digital store.

How is it remotely the same? The barcode is essentially a product serial number. The above is plain false equivalence.

 

[himanshumodi]

Umm, that's exactly what they do. That is exactly how their analysis works, which is done server-side. It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that an app will improve the user experience on a smartphone, since people won't have to dig up and copy the Amazon product URL, then navigate to Fakespot's site in a browser, then paste the URL into it for Fakespot to analyze.

The June statement is very odd, since I've had Fakespot on my phone for months, maybe over a year. Initially it worked more like a plugin, where you would press the Share button on the product page in the Amazon app, and "Analyze with Fakespot" would appear down at the bottom. This would open a popup browser window within the Amazon app showing the Fakespot page for that product (and the analysis process if it hadn't already been initiated by another shopper). For a while, that functionality disappeared for some reason. I just checked and it is back, though it also provides you the choice to view the analysis in the Fakespot app. Maybe that's what Amazon is bent out of shape about.

And honestly, if Amazon had actually solved the problem of fake reviews, there would be no need for Fakespot. Amazon reviews are the pits. The bots and shills are everywhere, drowning out the actual reviewers and making the whole review feature worthless. I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon's "80% wrong" comment actually means something like "in 80% of Fakespot analyses, we disagree with their rating by one or more grade point". Which basically means that Fakespot isn't 100% precise (due to reliance on machine learning) and it's a convenient talking point for Amazon to trumpet. In my experience, if Fakespot shows an issue with a product's reviews (whether it amounts to an F grade, a D, or a C) that is borne out when I spot check some reviewers. The analysis isn't perfect, but it's certainly good enough and much better than nothing. Which is exactly what Amazon wants -- ignorant shoppers.

That's a great assessment. Honestly fakespot sounds like exactly the thing needed for a lot of things that I have actually started to buy from Amazon instead of the local store. The products that typically do seem to have honest reviews are the ones that I still buy from stores on high street.