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Rather than blocking reviews, how hard would it be for a company like Amazon to release some anonymized data about these alleged review bombing incidents and allow independent researchers to make their own analysis on whether or not these are genuine reviews or not?

There's a big moral hazard here in that it's trivial for a big corporation to make claims that cannot be verified. Are we supposed to just trust them?

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Based on the kinds of things I've heard in the past about supposedly "anonymized" data being reassembled, I have to imagine that Amazon's lawyers would unequivocally decline that idea before the soundwaves finished reverberating off the conference room walls.

but then they would not be able to manipulate the results their own way which is exactly what is happening. make a crapfest look better than it should by cherry picking reviews.

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