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Hallelujah - Did Amazon Just Fix Their Review System?

So it looks like Amazon implemented a new policy with regards to product reviews. In order for someone to leave a review they must have spent $50 on Amazon since the creation of their Amazon account.

All I can say is Hallelujah!

This move, assuming Amazon actually enforces it and it's not merely a toothless tiger, will go a long way to shutting down the fake review business.

Obviously, it has drawbacks as some legitimate readers will not be able to leave reviews.  But as I said in a recent post, the review system is so broken that it was not only verging on being useless, but actually damaging Amazon's long-term viability as a business (which impacts everyone who sells on Amazon as well).

The things I'll be interested to see now are:

* Will the new filter apply retroactively?  It will be interesting to see if some books with say 50 reviews suddenly drop down to only having five.

* Will it adversely affect new authors? A lot of new authors generate traction with readers by giving one of their books away for free or heavily discounted. Customers picking up books this way may be financially strapped and not able to meet the $50 threshold.  So will new authors, who desperately need reviews, find it even more difficult to get them?

* This doesn't change the lower-level scams, it merely addresses the "review farms". The system can still be scammed, just that now a vendor will need a legitimate Amazon customer to leave fake reviews.

* Finally, will this tip the scale in favor of traditional publishers who can easily afford to scam the system as I mention above. They have the financial resources, as well as the employees, to simply buy 50 or 100 copies of a book and leave glowing reviews.

* Will the $50 limit simply make the fake review game more expensive? Are the scammers willing to create multiple accounts with $50 of spend on them just to leave a good review? For higher-end products (not ebooks, but things that cost say $500+, I could definitely see them doing so).

So is this the panacea we've been waiting for? No, it's not.

Is it a step in the right direction though? Most definitely. So much so that it's hopefully a harbinger for future actions Amazon might take to protect the efficacy of their review system.

Is it unfair in certain circumstances, taking away the voice of some legitimate reviews? It is.

But, desperate times call for desperate measures.

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