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Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

(blog.truestar.pro)
406 points doppio19 | 3 comments | 01 Jul 25 20:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.707s | source
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dankwizard ◴[02 Jul 25 02:16 UTC] No.44439699[source]▶
It was falling behind. The dodgy stores were getting more creative and Fakespot needed to play catch up.

You've got stores that would include a $5-$20 coupon/gift card in the item in exchange for a positive review. Sure, this didn't 1:1 translate but if a user did it would look like a legitimate review.

You've got a plethora of LLMs out there just itching to GENERATE.

Then an expensive option I was suprised happened - I bought a Dyson clone vacuum cleaner off of Amazon. A few weeks later, the company emailed me and said 'We have a new model. Buy that one, leave a review, we'll refund the purchase'. So I did it. This happened about 10 more times in 2024. My outdoor shed is entirely stick vacuums.

Feel a bit dirty doing it but that's ok I've got 12 vacuums that can clean my conscience.

I think Fakespot would have difficulty with all 3 of these scenarios.

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1. stronglikedan ◴[02 Jul 25 04:21 UTC] No.44440232[source]▶
Leave honest reviews (not saying you're not) and don't feel dirty. You'd actually be helping.
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2. dankwizard ◴[02 Jul 25 13:00 UTC] No.44443219[source]▶
They were mostly honest - I just always included something like 'an upgrade from my last one' but these clones are all so similar and all effective. Can do the whole house on a single charge, strong enough, has the low projecting light to highlight dust, high number of attachments.

Does the job. I'm no vacuum connoisseur (Which you think I'd be after all of these) but none were scammy products.

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3. fransje26 ◴[03 Jul 25 14:02 UTC] No.44455206[source]▶
Ah, I was looking at a Dyson a while back, and wondering if they were worth buying. Went for something else in the end, as I thought they were a bit pricey for what they offered, and didn't dare go for a clone.

Would you happen to have a link to the model you got (or one of the similar models), to get an idea of which clone could be worth considering next time?