Amazon sues over claimed fake reviews posted on its site
An Amazon lawsuit says three websites and a California man are free-riding on the Internet retail giant’s name–and hurting sellers and consumers–by posting fake product reviews on Amazon.com.
The suit accuses the defendants of violating consumer and intellectual property laws by using domain names that are confusingly similar to Amazon’s and marketing glowing product reviews to those who are willing to pay for them, reports the Seattle Times. Filed Wednesday in Washington state’s King County Superior Court, the suit seeks a cease-and-desist order, treble damages and attorney’s fees.
The suit is the first time that Amazon has litigated to enforce its product-review platform in the nearly 20 years that it has been operational, the newspaper says.
Mark Collins owns one of the websites at issue, buyamazonreviews.com, but was not personally named as a defendant. He said the site has done nothing wrong.
“We are not selling fake reviews; however we do provide unbiased and honest reviews on all the products,” he wrote in an email to the Times. “And this is not illegal at all.”
