waltfrench

For several years, I've called for Apple (and Amazon, etc) to require review-writers to affirm something like the following:

“I purchased this product on the same terms as any customer can, and have NO relationship with either the supplier (dev, etc) or its competitors, other than as an ordinary customer.”

Every review should go to the app or product supplier, who should regularly report to Apple whether they see suspicious reviews.

This won't stop haters or fanboys (nor should it!) but when surreptitious deals ARE found, it can allow Apple to penalize the seller for its participation in dishonest deals. These could, for instance, include warnings in the reviews page that the supplier has been associated with self-dealing reviews.

I'm pretty libertarian in general, but as Akerlof's Nobel Prize work shows, pseudo- and mis-information harms a marketplace, making it worse for legit sellers and all buyers.