FTC's rule banning fake online reviews goes into effect

* Step 1, take a product with a terrible rating

* Step 2, create a new SKU for the exact same product so it has no ratings

* Step 3, get a handful of fake 5-star reviews (in some way the FTC isn't going to crack down on)

* Step 4, blast the old terribly reviewed product that now has good reviews on marketing

* Step 5, get 10s of thousands of sales, $$$

* Step 6, let the terrible reviews pour in

Repeat to step 1 (possibly under a different brand name).

Another aspect is review solicitation. eg: ios games often pop up with their own modal of "Rate us" and if you click 5 it redirects you to app store to make a review, if you click 4 or less it redirects you to a feedback form. They grease the path for positive reviewers.

I get that some products have configurations, like color and size, but often times wildly different products are grouped together.

Wouldn't like to assume but regulatory bodies usually think about these things in advance no ?

This is basically the equivalent of saying "How are you going to stop crime X if they commit crime X in a way that let's them get away with X?"

Either they find a way to enforce the rules against step 3, or they fail to do so. We can't know yet.

Now if only Apple would enforce those (or stop doing them themselves).

Otherwise it should be possible to sort products or even brands/sellers by age and prefer older ones with more reviews.

I'm not sure Amazon does the first though ATM, and it definitely doesn't do the latter.

Then again, when I was much younger, I had a backpacking can opener that was useful when hiking in places where sometimes buying canned foods made sense. It was about as large as a very large postage stamp, and crazy good for the size and weight. I wouldn't want to use it at home (much), but it was awesome when I had to carry it around.

So, even for can openers, the story can be complicated.

Also, assuming that the primary purpose of an F350 is towing is ... interesting. Lots and lots of them here in rural NM (as much as anyway, anyway), and they are rarely towing anything.

Letting something that is 1% of operating hours for a device drive requirements strongly is often a mistake. With some obvious exceptions because e.g. I cannot choose when I am going to engage in maximum braking and defer it to a different vehicle.

> The final rule addresses reviews and testimonials that misrepresent that they are by someone who does not exist, such as AI-generated fake reviews, or who did not have actual experience with the business or its products or services, or that misrepresent the experience of the person giving it.

I tow stuff about a dozen times a year and live in a city. I drive a Tahoe because not being able to tow when you want to is a pretty big inconvenience even though I’m a single occupant driver 90% of the time and it’s way bigger than I “need”. Turns out it’s quite comfortable and I just like it, even if I wasn’t towing ever.

I went years of renting vehicles just to tow. It sucks in a lot of ways. No one just wakes up and thinks “I’m going to tow some stuff”. You’re doing it for a reason, there’s probably a high amount of labor involved in that reason, trying to do it all in the rental window or find an appropriate vehicle on the day you need it. Is a challenge. I’ve set rental reservations then it rains so I can’t do the work I needed to. Clear skies tomorrow but have to wait a week for another rental to be available. It’s a hassle.

Another thing I struggle with is my towing needs fluctuate a lot. Earlier this year I was doing a construction project and ended up needing to tow stuff practically every day for 6 weeks. If I tried to do that any other way than owning a capable vehicle, it’d have been logistically challenging. Trying to time vehicle rental with trailer and equipment rentals would have dragged the construction project out to easily triple the time just by adding delay, probably much longer. Not to mention the cost of it all. Which the bigger vehicles do cost more, but they are assets even if depreciating. When you rent it’s pure expense. The rent cs own calc can flip quickly.

I'd just say rent something for that one off time in its entire ownership. Otherwise, I'd be daily driving a 26' box truck because I moved apartments every few years.

One time I had to ship a few pallets of stuff across the country. I guess I should have just bought a semi-trailer truck as a daily driver.

Fake or False Consumer Reviews, Consumer Testimonials, and Celebrity Testimonials: The final rule addresses reviews and testimonials that misrepresent that they are by someone who does not exist, such as AI-generated fake reviews, or who did not have actual experience with the business or its products or services

If you covertly switch the product, then the reviews shown are from people who did not have actual experience with the product.

Here the person was saying "once in the entirety of your ownership". If it's really once in the vehicle's life, then you really should rent something else when you need this.

I understand renting vehicles to move stuff is a PITA. I've used the hardware store's trucks several times and it adds a lot of anxiety to a project (though I've never had a really tough time with availability).

- Some disgruntled people at company's could leak directly, which would make engaging in this behavior riskier

- Random individuals or competing companies could monitor product reviews and report. For example, show that an Amazon product ID used to be for another product 3 months ago when reviews were written.

I'm optimistic. There are a lot of regulations (including digital regulations) that everyone ends up following even if the government isn't monitoring things themselves. The risk of penalty just needs to be high enough, and hopefully places like Amazon realize the downside/penalty of fake reviews now makes it worth policing.

It obviously won't help your "first impression" review problem but that's not the intent of the law and not sure why the government would be involved in that. A lot of movies don't hold up well on a rewatch, too. If you are that particular about buying something that lasts X years then you can seek out dedicated advice blogs/youtube channels.

Occasionally I still rent, sometimes I need a bigger truck than I have due to weight.

Unfortunately Apple doesn’t seem to care unless the rule is really good for Apple.

However I've never found a truck I can rent to two. Sure I can rent trucks, but they come up with a large pile of fine print which says I cannot two. Even those box trucks cannot tow, or can tow but only their trailer which has specific restrictions on what you can use it for. Oh, and the trailer they allow you to use has surge brakes which are terrible.

The FTC can say it's illegal to do X, and all companies can do X with impunity if the FTC, in practice, does not do anything about it when companies do X.

if I could be bothered with the effort, this is the kind of petty I would engage in.

> 4.5.4 ... Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages. Abuse of these services may result in revocation of your privileges.

The worst offender is DoorDash. If you turn off push ads, after you place an order it will prompt you to turn on notifications "to get the latest on your order". Agreeing turns on ads. You get the prompt even if you already have order update notifications enabled.

How could they allow this?

And most of all, don’t make global generalizations on commentary that is quite specific and on a very particular topic.

But to be honest the vast majority of times I've needed to rent a truck to tow something it's because I was renting something towable. I can't imagine I'd bother renting some equipment from one place just to rent a truck from someplace else.

In fact, it's not like one needs some giant truck to tow many things. The vehicle I've owned that had the most use out of its tow hitch was a Ford Focus. I've gotten a bit of use from my midsize crossover which has 5,000lbs of tow capacity. More than enough for a small boat or jet skis or a small trailer.

So you end up in some new equilibrium. Maybe that equilibrium is better, maybe it's worse, but it's simply not true that it's always better to do something rather than nothing, and pointing out the loopholes in the rules is valid criticism.

If you really like an app give it a nice review.

They proposed including review hijacking. There's probably a reason why they didn't include it. Or maybe they think the rules they included already cover it.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/10/...

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/06/...

They probably came to different conclusions as you. And I'm sure they have reasons why they left some of that stuff on the original list out. Because they spent 2 years looking at this rather than going with their "obvious first impression questions".

You'll also note from those links that they have already been pursuing some companies over this stuff. So they're probably aware of what they're up against.

Surely, 'conspiring to/orchestrating profit through immoral practices' is a more precise statement of Amazon's activities.

I sell a product there and some of my competitors are doing those things I listed. Their reviews are also very obviously fake. I’ve also received some obviously fake negative reviews. I’m not really holding out any hope that it’ll get better anytime soon.

I just reduced my Amazon advertising spend so I can focus on other channels. Also a little bit out of spite.

Personally, I'd rather see you add a small UI element somewhere, or a banner that appears briefly but critically doesn't cover up any controls. If you absolutely MUST use a pop up, you know when the best time to do that is? After I've completed some in app purchase. If I'm spending money on your product, chances are I'm moderately satisfied with it and feeling pretty good about it at that moment. Or if you don't have in app purchases, unless you've made a "content browsing only" app, you probably have some workflows that have a definite end state. Prompt me then, at the end of me doing what I've come to your app to do. But I've never once given a review / stars to any app that has interrupted me in the middle of or at the start of doing something.

I haven't lost anything from blocking the rest, and I'm not about to start allowing now.

"Notif" because it's Not a question of If I will allow them, also because it's not worthy of being called by a full and proper name.

if a car advertises that towing is a feature, and that the truck should be dependable in its features (which is literally Ford branding), and then towing only worked.. one time (barring extenuating circumstances) -- it most definitely is a product which failed to deliver.

a lemon, so to speak.

There's not even a single vehicle that I could choose that would meet all of my different use cases for 5 years. It's better to pick something that fits the 95% use case best, and figuring how best to plug the gaps for the other 5% of the time.

Signed, Someone who worked in sales.

I guess the FTC will be handing out fines for improper personal experiences now?

They’ve gotten pretty bad about it.

That’s fair, but if you push someone to review your app they’re going to rate it as they see fit, based on what’s important to them, not what the developer thinks is important. If the user feels strongly about a particular element - such as a pop up asking for a rating - they’re going to rate it based on that element. A developer is always free to change the app if they think it’s useful to appeal to that group of users, or ignore that group of users and accept that they don’t like the way you designed the app.

The comfort part is hard to discount too as is the increased visibility* and the fact that people choose a vehicle as a fashion statement.

* yes I know tall trucks are less safe for pedestrians and near distance visibility is reduced. That’s a low frequency occurrence for me, not a lot of pedestrians where I am, and is not something I even consider during purchase. Visibility in traffic and car centric places is so much better.

It might only be a few times a year, I need to move or rent some heavy equipment (excavators and skid steers and lifts mostly). Sometimes I tow a trailer that when empty would exceed your vehicle’s limit. UTVs is a huge hobby in the US and they weight about 1500 lbs each, usually tow 3 of them and trailer is 2500-3000 itself.

My folk live in a rural area and do this stuff weekly. Yet, when you/the GP above (complaining about all the F350s with not trailers) see them, they’re likely not doing that but they came into town for something. You’re sampling is off because you never go where they are when they use those features the most.

This is just a guess, but I’m not sure getting an e-mail asking for a rating a few days after a purchase is really as “get out of my face” inducing as the App pop ups. When I open an app to buy a ticket for public transportation, that is usually while I’m actively boarding the train/bus (because why would I do this in a timely manner?). That is the least likely moment I’ll respond well to review requests. I don’t think I’ve ever been tempted to leave a bad review over one of those emails, but I’m very often tempted to do so by app pop ups. If I’m not the only one then maybe the data would be interesting?

That being said. Unless the 1 star ragers spend time on their review it’s typically rather easy to challenge by the app creator at least in the Apple Store.

I suspect that some dependency popped it up.

Don't just interrupt me randomly before I do the thing I need

It doesn't, as long as the US keeps operating on only the letter of the law. It's obvious you're trying to work around a law that might be incomplete. Everyone involves knows they're trying to play around, find a loophole. Everyone knows it _should_ be illegal, but isn't. As long as the US legal system does not punish for blatantly breaking the spirit of the law, you're going to get screwed.

Don’t overrule my preferences in the name of growth hacking.

They didn't just come to town or something, they live there. They work there.

Your sampling is off because you never go where there's crowds of people who absolutely just have a truck as something to commute from their urban apartment to their office job. You never bother seeing the urban cowboys going to their finance jobs.

That would be a win for everyone.

I had Napper, a baby sleep tracker, ask me to rate the app at 3 am. Yes, I'm definitely going to give a thorough and well-thought review at 3 am.

I also don’t like review popups but, excepting egregious examples, I try to be patient because it is beyond most developers’ control that they have to do this in order to maintain a standing in the marketplace.

I have a strict rule that only people are allowed to make my devices notify; apps get notifications disabled by default.

Granted, there are plenty of other places to slot a review link in where it could be just as effective.

The key is catching the user when they aren't completing a specific task. People often check email to pass time, which is perfect for this.

The typical app store workflow for me is I visit the store to download a specific app I'd like to install. That app will then have to download and install while I wait.

That "while I wait" is an ideal time to ask me to rate other recently installed apps, or an app I haven't used in a while.

I don't live in town, I don't work in town. I ride my bike and run and drive in rural New Mexico.

Yes! As a heavy, long-time Amazon user I hate this and have to believe Amazon is knowingly complicit either in continuing to enable this shady vendor behavior or conveniently looking the other way. Of course, shady vendors will game whatever measures Amazon might take to prevent such tricks but it's so prevalent I don't think Amazon seriously invests in detection/prevention of 'rating swapping' on an ongoing basis anymore.

Another super annoying thing Amazon enables is allowing sellers to list multiple different products (SKUs) on the same listing. This was originally intended for things like different colors or sizes of the same product but it is frequently abused by vendors to bundle quite different products into one listing and thus sharing one rating.

Before they were the overwhelming market leader, Amazon used to care about and invest in the accuracy and credibility of product reviews and ratings. About 10 years ago they seemed to stop putting as much effort toward this and certainly in the past five years they don't seem to care if vendors subvert the system. I understand bad behavior can never be 100% prevented but Amazon could police and penalize it far more effectively. For example, requiring sellers above a certain volume of sales and listings to have increasingly stringent "real ID" type verification, making it harder (or at least more costly) to just relist under a new identity when caught cheating.

Of course I ride my bike most places. There are a few trips every month I make not in bike range though. If like most people I drove a car to work, then a tiny compact car and rent a truck when needed would make sense. But for me I drive to little that a large truck that does anything is cheapest (I've had the truck for 15 years)

A vehicle is expensive. A second vehicle is a lot more expensive. Renting a truck is expensive. If you need a truck just 5% of the time it is overall cheaper to just drive a truck for everything than to have two vehicles or try to rent.

This is what I'm doing as well. Apps have increasingly gotten more annoying in more ways - from unnecessary pop-up notifications (increased permission requests, policy updates, review pan-handling, etc), privacy issues, data hoarding and more. I also hate that almost all of the few remaining apps I do use are constantly pushing new versions into the app store, invariably with only a vaguely non-specific unchanging boilerplate sentence as a change log. Yet I never notice any new functionality or capabilities in the app and all-too-often updates only bring more ads, cross-promotion or other general enshittification (like just renaming or regrouping the same functionality in different ways - apparently for no reason other than to increase some internal aggregate 'usage metric' to hit a KPI). Although I don't know this, I assume app store algorithms must somehow (perhaps unintentionally) incentivize developers to constantly update their apps for little or no reason.

So, as a group, the long-term behavior of app developers has taught me to resist updating the few apps I do still have installed.

Spend some time in urban Texas and see tons of people who LARP as a cowboy while commuting from their zero-lot line house to their office job. They'll tell you they need a truck, but probably won't be able to point to a single time other than moving a couch that one time a couple years ago where it was actually necessary.

A vehicle is expensive. But tons of people don't pay attention to their costs. They'll drive around town at 13mpg and spend thousands a year more on fuel, tires, maintenance, and more while never really using the capacity of the vehicle they massively overbought because "it's comfortable". What percentage of people would you realistically expect to know how much they spent on fuel and maintenance on their car over the last two years? How many would have any idea how much that could be cut with a smaller car?

I'm not denying people in rural areas probably have a far higher likelihood of actually using trucks as trucks. I'm pointing to all the people in places like Plano who act like a giant truck is an essential thing to own.

And it's hilarious so many construction workers think they personally need a truck for their job. Some of these are those people I personally know who think they need a truck. They're usually not using their personal trucks to actually do any construction work. Most would be able to go to their jobs and back home in a Civic. When they're at the job site they're using the company trucks to actually do the work. A friend of mine "needed" a truck for his home construction business, a business he owns, but in the end never actually uses that truck as a truck. He drives it to the job site, gets out, hops in his International, and uses that to actually haul stuff.

For any of his employees, why would they even want to just donate their personal truck to someone else's company's use? Probably the most expensive thing they own, and they're just going to put the most demanding and high likelihood of damaging activities on it for their employer's benefit. Nope, instead they often show up in beater Camrys and what not.

And like I said earlier, another friend said he needed a truck because he needed a vehicle that could seat 5. That was the reason. Sure, need a truck for that.

I get so many people on places like HN trying to tell me these people just don't exist or are somehow very rare. And yet most people I personally know who drive massive body-on-frame SUVs and pickups are these kinds of people. Few people I know who own trucks actually use their trucks as trucks. Only a few actually do things like haul salvage engine blocks and transmissions (something where you really kind of do want a bed to crane it in and out) or actually routinely tow something.

The major apps typically exploit selection bias to solicit 5-star reviews. They will wait until the user meets some criteria for "having a good experience" and show an app review prompt at that moment.

Then, having amassed thousands of 5-star reviews, they will turn up the threshold so that only a trickle of the most likely 5-star reviews keep on trickling in to negate any negative organic reviews.

There's a related practice of "pre-prompting" where the app first asks the user whether they are satisfied and only solicits a real app review from those who pass the screening question.

It's all quite shady and makes it hard to trust app reviews. But until the app stores solve this, app developers need to play the game.