The Fault in the Stars: Understanding the Underground Market of Amazon Reviews

In recent times, the Internet has been plagued by a tremendous amount of misinformation. Online markets such as Amazon are also not free from misinformation. In this work, we study the misinformation propagated to consumers through the form of Amazon reviews. There exists a vast underground market where reviews by real Amazon users are purchased and sold. While such a practice violates Amazon's terms of service, we observe that there exists a complex network consisting of thousands of sellers and agents, who provide a rebate to consumers for leaving positive reviews to over $5000$ products. Based on interviews with members involved in the reviews market, we understand the working of this market, and the tactics used to avoid detection by Amazon. We also present a set of recommendations of features that Amazon and similar online markets can take into consideration to detect such reviews.