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Amazon Has Instituted a Cap on Product Reviews

2507355507_e0a8cff9d6_bAmazon has enacted another restriction on how and what gets posted in the review section on its site.

Earlier this week Amazon sent out an email to the more prolific reviewers with the news that they could no longer post an unlimited number of reviews for items they didn’t buy from Amazon.

A reader has forwarded the email he got from Amazon (Thanks, Will!).  You can find the email at the end of the post, but what it says is that if you write a review for an item you didn’t buy from Amazon then your review might not be posted.

Users can post reviews on as many items purchased from Amazon as they like but can only post "a limited number of non-Amazon Verified Purchase reviews" each week.

According to the relevant page on Amazon.com, users "can submit 5 non-Amazon Verified Purchase reviews each week".

And no, the new policy does not apply to book reviews.

This new policy follows only a few weeks after Amazon banned manufacturers from giving away samples in exchange for reviews. That activity is now restricted to the Amazon Vine program, where Amazon can collect coop fees from the manufacturers.

It is in part intended to restrict review spam like the recent attempt to trash Megyn Kelly’s memoir. In that campaign, like in previous malicious efforts, users posted reviews which had nothing to do with the book and were solely intended to trash its rating.

Amazon removed hundreds of reviews of Kelly’s book since it was published on 15 November, and now it has passed a rule to discourage this type of malicious campaign.

Edit: But as a reader has pointed out, the new rule would not prevent the smear campaign against Kelly because it does not apply to books.

Email:

Hello!

As a frequent reviewer of products on Amazon, we want you to be among the first to know about our review policy changes. Shoppers consistently tell us that they value reviews from other shoppers who they know have purchased the product on Amazon. As a result, we are introducing a policy change around customer reviews. Customers can now only submit a limited number of non-Amazon Verified Purchase reviews each week. The count is calculated each week from Sunday at 12:00am UTC through Saturday 11:59pm UTC. Your ability to submit Amazon Verified Purchase reviews will not be impacted. This policy also does not apply to Vine reviews or reviews on digital and physical books, music, and video.

What is an Amazon Verified Purchase review?

  • When an Amazon Verified Purchase badge appears next to a review, it means we have verified that the person writing the review purchased the product at Amazon and represents a typical customer experience with the product.
  • Reviews that are not marked “Amazon Verified Purchase” are valuable as well, but we either can’t confirm that the product was purchased at Amazon or the customer did not pay a price available to most Amazon shoppers.

For more details, please see our Community Guidelines at https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201929730.

We’re always innovating on behalf of our customers, and we’d love any feedback or ideas you have for how we can improve. You can contact us directly at [email protected].

Regards,
Your Amazon Community Team

image by MikeBlogs

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Comments


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Peter Winkler November 26, 2016 um 12:17 pm

If the new policy doesn’t apply to book reviews, then it is not an effective remedy for malicious bad reviews posted by enemies of an author who haven’t purchased their book.

Nate Hoffelder November 26, 2016 um 1:04 pm

Yes, you’re right. I should have been more clear on that point.


Haesslich November 26, 2016 um 1:38 pm

That’s one way to encourage uptake on the Amazon Vine program, I guess.

Peter Winkler November 26, 2016 um 4:45 pm

Egg-zactly.


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Joe August 30, 2020 um 12:23 am

I went on Amazon to publish a review which was meant to help other shoppers. Instead I got the following:

"We apologize but this account has not met the minimum eligibility requirements to write a review. If you would like to learn more about our eligibility requirements, please see our community guidelines."

The review was about my intention to buy a new printer, with certain characteristics. I spent the time to write it then got the quoted response.

To me this means reviews are even LESS trustworthy. My review was meant to encourage printer manufacturers to provide missing options. All manufacturers state their printers are "All in one", except none of the new printers that have tanks built in also allow CD/DVD media output. This is important because saving data to thumb drives doesn’t allow sufficient identification of what is on the CD or DVD.

Instead the only comments I read were positive, and didn’t give the shopper the opportunity to state what they found missing.

I may buy from Amazon, if I get a good price. But I disagree that their policy benefits those who want to learn of the experience of other shoppers for a particular item. I saw far too many positive comments I considered untrustworthy in my search for a new printer.


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