Amazon Files Lawsuit against Fake Reviewers

Retail giant Amazon has filed a lawsuit against 1,114 members of the online freelancing site Fiverr for offering to provide fake product reviews for fees as low as $5. At present, the lawsuit identifies the sellers only as “John Does”, because of the anonymity that accompanies online selling. The legal action comes following a sting investigation by Amazon into some of the sellers offering these fake reviews.

In the lead up to this action, Amazon employees claiming to be merchants wishing to purchase reviews contacted sellers in an attempt to determine the nature of the fake review selling business. In one instance, a seller even offered to let the supposed client personally write the review that would then be posted to Amazon. The company is not suing Fiverr as an entity, but only the sellers who participated in these activities through the platform. Fiverr, which does not allow gigs that violate the terms of service of a third party platform, is reportedly cooperating with Amazon in the investigation.

The lawsuit comes less than six months after a similar suit, in which Amazon took legal action against websites that had been established for the purpose of offering similar services. Amazon has stated that the fake reviews are relatively few, but that they are also highly damaging to the Amazon business model. Fake or paid reviews are clearly stated to be unacceptable in Amazon’s terms of service for users. The lawsuit, which was filed in Seattle two days ago, is likely to proceed by establishing seller identities via IP address search in order to bring suit against those sellers as individuals.