is Amazon removing negative reviews?

actually my question is directed at Amazon - are you removing negative reviews???

I have posted many negative reviews and Amazon never touches them. However, a reviewer could edit or remove any reviews he has put up.

Actually, it appears that they do. I posted some negative reviews for a clown name 'Mehdi' who self produces some really crappy synthesizer dreck. All of the 'positive' reviews are by shills who only review 'Mehdi'. Guess what? My reviews are totally gone, even though they were published at one time. They don't even show up in my review history. So yes, Amazon can be bought.

It's been widely discussed and verified that Amazon can and does remove valid reviews, typically negative reviews. As far as I know, they have never made any attempt to explain or justify this. It's to the point where I no longer trust any of the ratings on Amazon without doing corroborating research. That takes time, and the more difficult Amazon makes it to use their site, the less I will use it. I can think of plenty of instances where the "most helpful negative review" was not even close to the most helpful of the negative reviews (by number of votes or percentage of votes), and often isn't even negative at all. But when an author creates 50 phony reviews for his own book, they allow it.

I suppose that when all products are more favorably reviewed, they think they will make more sales. What it really does, though, is ruin their credibility.

No one should doubt by now that Amazon won't hesitate to remove a negative review, but here's some more evidence (that has the kind of irrational quality that has characterized most of my dealings with Amazon):

- I posted a negative review that was removed, apparently upon complaint by the author of the book I reviewed

- Amazon's explanation was that:
"Our guidelines do not allow discussions that criticize authors or their intentions."

Wow! That knocked my socks off. Reviews shouldn't be permitted to criticize authors or their intentions? Really? I can't say, for example, that "Author X's historical fiction intended to depict 19th century marketing practices accurately, but the author failed in that intention as can be seen from the following examples"?

Worse yet, check out the Amazon reviewing guidelines: there *are* no injunctions against criticizing authors or their intentions.

The root problem as I see it is the lack of transparency in the removal-decision process. Customers (remember when Amazon was "consumer-centric"?) have access only to Customer Service, *not* to the mysterious "Review Team" that makes the editorial decisions concerning review removal. Customer Service mediates between the consumer and the Review Team. There is no direct channel of communication to the Review Team. The end result is the kind of message I've quoted above, which justifies the removal of a review on the basis of a violation of a guideline that doesn't exist.

The appropriate way to respond to a situation like this is to recognize that the entire review environment within Amazon is a farce, and the obligation of the reviewer is really to capitalize to one's best advantage on the opportunities for parody, satire, and the theater of the absurd. Under the circumstances, the only kind of review that should be considered offensive is one that presents itself seriously and straightforwardly as an objective review.

Not only book reviews!

I reviewed a lego set unfavorably. The review never was posted. First I thought it was a computer glitch so I tred again. Still did not appear. A few more attempts and nothing. Writing to Amazon I got no response.

What is the point of having reviews if they are all skewed? This was the big draw of amazon, and one that made up for not being able to touch the product and having to wait to get it. But now I learn they are all filtered anyway.

Amazon may have just shot itself in the foot. What a stupid policy. I understand removing some of the drivel that is just ranting and cursing but a legitimate negative review? Are they afraid of a lawsuit (oh, that reader hurt my feelings/sales) put a disclamer that opinions belong to the writers, not to the company. Where is the open dialog?

Shame on Amazon!

Whomever made the decision to remove negative posts should read this article. It explains that negative reviews actually help customer satisfaction (I suppose if you know the down side going in, you won't be surprised)

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/13386.asp

how do you edit or remove a review of your own?

They must be. I received a free book as part of their Vine program and really didn't like it and said as much. I also questioned why it was published...noticing that an executive from a book publisher was the guy's friend and wrote the foreword. I can't find that review anywhere now. Amazon has me down as having given it "one star" in my recommendations, but what I wrote is gone.

WOW! It's sickening but true. Amazon removes the negative reviews.

A few years ago I wrote a 1-star review for a product that I bought solely because it had eight 5-star reviews (a perfect 100% rating). I was so disappointed that I had to give an honest review because the existing "reviews" were so fabricated and misleading. Over the years, it got a few more 1-star reviews, but there would still be other 5-star reviews that kept popping up and all of them sounded like they were written by the same person.

All those 1-star reviews have since been removed and the product once again has a "stellar" rating. In case you're curious, here is the item number: 1882899067
Male Multiple Orgasm: Step-by-Step (4th Edition UPDATED for WOMEN-2007)

SHAME ON YOU, AMAZON! You've officially stooped to the levels of eBay.

all I can say is they removed mine neg review of carter....at least its not there anymore.

This is absolutely true. I have had numerous reviews that I posted, but were never published. When I complained, I was given the same chat about "guidelines" -- guidelines that insist you can't criticize the author, dispute the information in a book, or offer any sort of outside opinions or commentary. In essence, they are saying all you can do is say whether you liked the book or not, but not actually discuss anything regarding content. This means in reality "don't say anything negative or we won't print it". In light of that, I think everything here is now false; it wasn't always this way, but I think they have cracked down to promote sales, feeling that negative reviews or ratings will hurt sales. This is a disgrace! I am really ashamed of them, not to mention I will never trust anything I read in the form of an Amazon review again.

I'd also like to add that among the things they HAPPILY allow to get posted are shill reviews by author friends, agents and relatives!!!! Apparently that does not constitute an ethics problem.

I just bought 5 more books off Amazon, and I confess I don't read so many of the reviews. But, if I can verify that Amazon removes customer reviews for reasons other than profanity, personal attacks, etc... I've bought my last book here. I'm starting to look at the reviews of a junk book I bought where people are complaining that their honest and well written negative reviews are being removed. Just as bad, the 5-star reviews on the terrible book are the majority, each of those reviews use the same grammar, sentence structure, phrases and tempo, and are the only reviews written by those authors. I won't accuse unless I am 100% convinced, but I still can smell, and I smell shill.

I can tell you for sure it is absolutely true. Look at an 'artist' named [who's name I cannot mention and get this posted] specifically his [CENSORED] CD. This music is indescribably bad and yet it has 11 5 star reviews and 1 one star review (mine). I cannot tell you how many times I re-entered this negative review (it became a crusade) only to find that it had been deleted.

I finally called Amazon to find out what was going on. I was told that the reason the reviews had been deleted was be cause I mentioned in my review that all of the positive reviews were by people who only reviewed [nameless artist's] CDs. Hmmm. Seemed odd enough to me to be worthy of mention.

Amazon said that I was 'disparaging' other reviewers. Obviously the evidence has been erased, but the only thing I 'disparaged' was the lousy album while mentioning that the reviewers seemed to be plants. I don't recall using the term shill, but it was certainly the implication.

I finally gave up replacing deleted negative reviews on the other [nameless artist] album that I was trying to warn folks off of.

So I can tell you that, yes indeed, Amazon removes negative reviews for less than valid reasons.

Oh and by the way the 20 dollar electronic keyboard 'artist' [CENSORED] really does make some horrible CDs. Really.

BTW this is my 3rd attempt to post THIS message. Seems it did not like me mentioning the specific title of the 'artist's' CD or even the artist's name. Wow. free speech is dead at Amazon.

On further review, you can read my earlier post in this thread (2nd or third from the top) and see the nameless one's name, if you would like to confirm the veracity of my claims.

Zinc Ointment, keep trying, just don't "disparage" the other reviewers. I think if you write a good review on why the music is bad, it might stand on its own merits. It is getting pretty obvious that there are hired guns out there that write positive reviews for compensation of some sort. When I go product shopping, I usually just read the low star reviews now to see if the problem with the product is user-error or user-stupidity or a genuine flaw.

[Customers don't think this post adds to the discussion. Show post anyway. Show all unhelpful posts.]

I said that only because YOU wrote that it was one of the reasons Amazon gave you for deleting your post. The snarkiness was not necessary. We're all in this together and shouldn't turn on each other.

I reviewed Metallica's song, "St. Anger," and though it was published, Amazon took out the first sentence and replaced it with brackets. When e-mailed, they gave me the same BS statement.

Amazon is in the BUSINESS of selling books - why would it allow reviewers to affect its revenue? It tries to project that it allows objective reviews but doesn't if authors don't like them a lot.

i wrote a review on lauren grodstein's 'Friend of a family'. it was a negative review (well-deserved, IMO), but the review never showed up. so i wrote it again today and im hoping it's up within 48 hours. if it doesnt, then im going to be furious. and yeah, that book mostly got positive reviews except for a few mildly negative reviews. i no longer trust amazon reviews. try goodreads.com for more honest opinions on books.

[Deleted by the author on Feb 11, 2010 7:40:47 AM PST]

[Deleted by the author on Mar 6, 2010 6:41:02 PM PST]

That's a question I would like answered.

" a reviewer could edit..." It appears that the past tense 'could' is appropriate.
Being an individual whom is dyslexic (sp) I often wish that I 'can'. If you know how to do this for reviews which one had made over a year ago, then please let me know how.

You were posting that tidbit from personal knowledge, right?

I notice that I can edit this post but I don't see any such option on some of my doubble reviews or ones with Typos. I can only see teh one most commented review in my profile account management and there are no options to edit even it.

I would like to add Amazon removed my POSITIVE reviews of books. So I'm not sure if they are biased. I suppose they simply have a strict policy. I have no idea why my reviews were removed. Maybe I revealed a "spoiler" by accident. It irritates me, though, after spending time and energy trying to post a fair review.