Fakespot claimed to detect bad sellers and fake reviews on Amazon using sophisticated computer programs.
Apple; Illustration by Stephen Shankland/CNET
Amazon said Friday it had complained to iPhone maker Apple about the Fakespot review app, which it says inaccurately detects bad sellers and fake write-ups on its store. Apple appears to have taken the e-commerce giant’s concerns seriously: The app has disappeared from its popular App Store.
In a statement, Amazon said Fakespot “provides customers with misleading information about our sellers and their products, harms our sellers’ businesses, and creates potential security risks” when it grades products and sellers on a scale separate from Amazon’s own reviews system.
Neither Apple and nor Fakespot immediately responded to requests for comment. CNET confirmed Fakespot is no longer available on Apple’s App Store.
On its website, Fakespot says it is “a data analytics company” that uses computer programs to identify whether reviews and the reviewers leaving them are legitimate. The app assesses the quality of the reviewer’s writing, the profile of the reviewer and other reviewer data for a given product.
“We use artificial intelligence that has been trained to pick up on patterns,” the company says in an explanation of its service. “The more data that flows into the system, the better the system gets at the detecting fakes.”
Amazon reviewed products Fakespot rated as untrustworthy and found it was incorrect 80% of the time. Apple’s review guidelines prohibit apps that spread “false information,” as well as apps that access another company’s service without permission.
“We appreciate Apple’s review of this app against its Appstore guidelines,” Amazon said.
Amazon’s complaints about Fakespot come as the e-commerce company increasingly wrestles with companies and groups that solicit reviews on its platform. Amazon prohibits “incentivized” write-ups in which companies give refunds or free products in exchange for reviews.
In June, Amazon said it removed 200 million suspected fake reviews before they could be posted to pages listed by one of 1.9 million third-party sellers on its platform. The company uses computer programs to look for suspicious behavior, such as clusters of new customer accounts that review the same products. Still, fake review groups have popped up on social networks, such as Facebook, further encouraging the behavior.
Fake reviews can help brands game Amazon’s system, which uses positive reviews to promote products in its rankings.
“We have seen an increasing trend of bad actors attempting to solicit fake reviews outside Amazon, particularly via social media services,” an Amazon blog post last month said. “Some use social media services on their own; in other cases, they hire a third-party service provider to perpetrate this activity on their behalf.”