Amazon lets people post reviews of books (and other products) anonymously. But it’s not really anoymous, of course, since Amazon knows who’s signed in for it.
As was demonstrated this week, when Amazon.ca (the Canadian version) inadvertently displayed the actual names of individuals with the anonymous listings due to a software glitch.
And who are those anonymous posters? A remarkable number appear to be the creators of works giving their own stuff five stars, or else zapping the works of competitors or colleagues they’ve felt have been unfairly lionized.
“It was an unfortunate error,” said Patricia Smith, an Amazon spokeswoman. “We’ll examine whatever happened and make sure it won’t happen again.”
But even with reviewer privacy restored, many people say Amazon’s pages have turned into what one writer called “a rhetorical war,” where friends and family members are regularly corralled to write glowing reviews and each negative one is scrutinized for the digital fingerprints of known enemies.
One well-known writer admitted privately — and gleefully — to anonymously criticizing a more prominent novelist who he felt had unfairly reaped critical praise for years. She regularly posts responses, or at least he thinks it is her, but the elegant rebuttals of his reviews are also written from behind a pseudonym.
Heh.
(via BoingBoing)(