{"id":5593,"date":"2004-02-14T11:29:02","date_gmt":"2004-02-14T18:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2004\/02\/14\/anonymous-mostly.html"},"modified":"2004-02-14T11:29:02","modified_gmt":"2004-02-14T18:29:02","slug":"anonymous_mostl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/02\/14\/anonymous_mostl.html","title":{"rendered":"Anonymous … mostly"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

As was demonstrated this week, when Amazon.ca (the Canadian version) inadvertently displayed the actual names of individuals with the anonymous listings<\/a> due to a software glitch.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“It was an unfortunate error,” said Patricia Smith, an Amazon spokeswoman. “We’ll examine whatever happened and make sure it won’t happen again.”
\nBut 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.
\nOne well-known writer admitted privately \u2014 and gleefully \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

Heh.<\/p>\n

(via BoingBoing<\/a>)(<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hi-tech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38304,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/16\/reviewing-reviews-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":5593,"position":0},"title":"Reviewing Reviews","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 16-Jul-13 10:13am","format":false,"excerpt":"Online reviews can be helpful, but the should be treated like -- well, any other anonymous anecdotal information. \u00a0Sometimes a reviewer will not a feature (or flaw) that's not highlighted elsewhere that's important to my decision. Sometimes I just have to make an assessment about how credible a particular outlier\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16523,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/12\/unblogged-bits-for-tuesday-12-january-2010.html","url_meta":{"origin":5593,"position":1},"title":"Unblogged Bits for Tuesday, 12 January 2010","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 12-Jan-10 5:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... mental_floss Blog \u00bb A $100,000 Bill? The Story Behind Large-Denomination Currency - Money can be fun! (I also remember being introduced to Salmon P Chase on money in old \"Game of Life\" gamesets.) In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38842,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/28\/i-am-not-an-animal-i-am-an-anonymous-human-being.html","url_meta":{"origin":5593,"position":2},"title":"I am not an animal! I am an anonymous human being!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 28-Sep-13 11:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"I've noticed these while doing more work in Drive lately. \u00a0It's fun. (h\/t +Yonatan Zunger)Reshared post from +Ihab AwadJust noticed this! View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30754,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/22\/amazon-works-great-until-it-fails-catastrophically.html","url_meta":{"origin":5593,"position":3},"title":"Amazon works great until it fails catastrophically","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 22-Oct-12 10:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"Take the below case, where someone had their account canceled by Amazon, and inquiries got back frustratingly\u00a0vague messages that her account had been associated with another Bad Actor, and so was being canceled.Which would be an unpleasant circumstance, if it weren't that her Kindle account was\u00a0canceled, the Kindle\u00a0wiped, and all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137170,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/13\/yet-another-anonymous-op-ed-is-published.html","url_meta":{"origin":5593,"position":4},"title":"Yet another anonymous Op-Ed is published","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Sep-18 11:11am","format":false,"excerpt":"This one finally sets the record straight! Originally shared by +Les Jenkins: It's shocking. Really. I'm totally shocked. BREAKING NEWS: Second Anonymous Op-Ed by Senior WH Official Published Letter Seeks to Rebut Critical NY Times Op-Ed Original Post","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31285,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/08\/amazon-wine.html","url_meta":{"origin":5593,"position":5},"title":"Amazon Wine","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Nov-12 1:20pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah, because this is just what I need ...Actually, it isn't, really. Colorado is not yet on the list of recipient states. And the prices for the labels I recognized weren't that great, even without the $1.67\/bottle shipping cost (sorry, no Prime), and the selection was adequate but not all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}