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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: 0s | 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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bsdz ◴[02 Jul 25 08:35 UTC] No.44441357[source]▶
I'm struggling to believe you have a dozen new vacuum cleaners in your shed. It's quite an extraordinary claim. Are you willing to share some evidence?
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1. dankwizard ◴[02 Jul 25 12:54 UTC] No.44443159[source]▶
Sure. It's cold, rainy, and midnight but here's what came up in my email when searching "vacuum". It's not all, and you can see some I didn't reply to but -

https://imgur.com/a/F0u9xVM

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2. dankwizard ◴[02 Jul 25 12:57 UTC] No.44443190[source]▶
Example of the contents of an offer:

https://imgur.com/a/q634ty4

3. bsdz ◴[02 Jul 25 17:15 UTC] No.44446267[source]▶
I was looking forward to seeing 12 neatly stacked & boxed vacuum cleaners in a dimly lit corner of your shed ;-)

That said, thanks for sharing the emails/headers.

It's curious that Amazon hasn't flagged you for purchasing & reviewing multiple similar items in such a short span of time. I would imagine it would be quite easy to spot someone who's bought and reviewed 12 vacuum cleaners in a 2 or 3 year window.