That’s the thrust of an article in The Cincinnati Beacon which found that Rachel Friedman, a public relations agent, has written 72 reviews:
Ever read a book review on Amazon.com that was so rah-rah and uncritical that you wondered if the reviewer might have connections to the author or publisher? That’s what happened to us recently. A few mouse clicks later, we found ourselves asking serious questions about scores of five-star book reviews posted by one Amazon user and her connections to a prominent national PR company in Clearwater, Florida. … Nearly every book reviewed by Friedman was associated with publicity materials uploaded on ArticleTrader, a free article database. Click here to see a list of a few hundred bylined articles and press releases uploaded there by user News & Experts. Cross-referencing, we found that 69 the 72 books from Friedman’s Amazon account were also the subjects of News & Experts articles and media releases. For example, here’s an article by N&E staff writer Tony Panaccio promoting a book about a medical condition … Friedman’s review is a word-for-word copy except that she didn’t include Mr. Panaccio’s name.
Much more detail in the article.
While not directly ebook related, I think it’s our duty to point out abuses like this when they come to our attention.
Amazon could reduce the impact of these confabulated reviews by displaying a count of a reviewer’s reviews. For instance, for the book Making Ideas Happen, the currently Most Helpful review is by:
Roizen (New York) – See all my reviews
It would be helpful to readers if the See all my reviews looked more like this:
Roizen (New York) – See all my reviews (1)
I have no reason to believe Roizen’s review isn’t legitimate. That’s not my point. But I need to form some estimate of the reliability of a review, and a numerical count of the number of reviews by that reviewer would he helpful.
That is a really good tip particularly to those new to the blogosphere.
Brief but very accurate information… Thank you
for sharing this one. A must read post!