Amazon user feedback used for censorship

Running anynewbooks.com, this is only one of the abuses I routinely see happening on Amazon. Most of the other abuses are related to the review system. There are so many fake and spiteful reviews, that in many cases it's really hard to judge a book based on the reviews.<p>I absolutely love Amazon, but they need preventive measures against these forms of manipulation.<p>For example:<p>- Prevent people who haven't bought the book from Amazon to leave a review. People may still abuse the review system, but it will be less people, and they'll make the author and publisher slightly richer in the process.<p>- If you complain about a book not being as good as advertised, you need to provide proof. Explain in detail what is wrong with it, and provide photographic proof, a scan, or send the book back for inspection. Issue a refund by all means, but don't just trust them and pull the book from the shelves.<p>Right now, anyone could tank any new book published on Amazon with very little work on their part.

On the bright side, he can now legitimately market the book as "The book THEY don't want you to read"

OK, so 5 people returned the book as "not as described."<p>Here is a question. If you are returning a product to amazon because you don't like it, is the only way to get your shipping refunded and/or a refund at all to check the box that says "not as described"?<p>It sounds like some people bought the book and didn't like it so they returned it. If it's only 5 people it's not much of an organized conspiracy by "fanatics" as he suggests.<p>Perhaps the problem is with amazon's return policies, and perhaps they should not link "not as described" to cancellations with books from known publishers as they would be if it was sacks of golden coins sold by some independent vendor.<p>In a brick and mortar store, customers can evaluate more of a book than is possible on amazon. Therefore it would be reasonable for amazon to have a liberal refund policy.

Amazon user feedback may sometimes be useful, though.<p>Last week, while browsing the Amazon page for Zed Shaw's "Learn Python The Hard Way", I noticed that the only review was a 2-star review with a comment along the lines of "I haven't read it, but since it's free on the learnpythonthehardway website, don't bother buying it on Amazon!"* I thought this was just wrong to "review" a book like this. Reviews should at least address the content of a book...<p>I noticed the "0 out of 4 people found this review helpful", and promptly added another "unhelpful" vote. I also decided to "report" the review (first time I clicked this button). When I came back the next day, the review had been removed. I have no idea whether other people reported it too, or whether an Amazon employee manually checked the review. But it sure seems to be effective, and I think it was useful here.<p>*: I haven't kept a copy of the exact comment.

I'm getting a "Forbidden: you don't have permission to access" error on this link.

I think that private companies need to establish due process just like governments, especially when they are among the market leaders in their field.<p>That means that they need to check accusations first, before they damage their customers.

The author s looking for media hype and doesn't even have the facts. Put simply, he's playing the martyr card and making a scene just to boost his own sales.<p>telling people to tweet his page isnt so much a protest against amazon as it is a Marketing Campaign. (a handful of re/tweets isnt going to suddenly incite action on amazons part)<p>That aside, I dont think i'll be buying the book of someone who cries censorship (/wolf) when he himself doesnt even know whats going on.

I don't see how Amazon could possibly handle this better. Having somebody read every book before it goes on sale definitely wouldn't scale.<p>Perhaps they could offer to verify a book for a fee. Then again, the problem might not be widespread enough.<p>I think I would set up my web sites in the same way: as soon as users would push the red alert button for some item on my site, I would withdraw it from public circulation and mark it for reviewing. On the upside, once it is manually reviewed, it could not be flagged again. How else would you do it?

That's the problem with monopolistic/dominant companies... They just don't care. Neither about their customers, neither about their business partners.<p>G+ vs. FB FTW!

Sounds like paranoia to me. Amazon is following their policies. Nothing to see here.