In order to make this claim, Amazon, TechCrunch, and the researcher they cite must be able to accurately identify the population of incentivized reviews. How is that possible?
Incentivized reviews, if I'm using the term correctly, are designed to be indistinguishable from 'real' reviews. The reviewers aren't going to reveal which ones are incentivized.
If you think you can identify them, what you mean is that you can identify the ones that you identify; it's literally that much of a tautology. You have no idea of your accuracy, how many true and false positives and how many true/false negatives.
What Amazon is done is the same; they remove reviews that meet certain criteria. Amazon claims the criteria are an accurate proxy for incentivized reviews but I doubt they can confirm that.
At best they are raising the bar so that only better written incentivized reviews remain, and incentivized reviewers will adjust to the new standard. Users, no longer seeing incentivized reviews that they can identify, will assume the situation has improved. Really, they are still being conned but now don't know it.
Incentivized reviews, if I'm using the term correctly, are designed to be indistinguishable from 'real' reviews. The reviewers aren't going to reveal which ones are incentivized.
If you think you can identify them, what you mean is that you can identify the ones that you identify; it's literally that much of a tautology. You have no idea of your accuracy, how many true and false positives and how many true/false negatives.
What Amazon is done is the same; they remove reviews that meet certain criteria. Amazon claims the criteria are an accurate proxy for incentivized reviews but I doubt they can confirm that.
At best they are raising the bar so that only better written incentivized reviews remain, and incentivized reviewers will adjust to the new standard. Users, no longer seeing incentivized reviews that they can identify, will assume the situation has improved. Really, they are still being conned but now don't know it.