Amazon is suing the managers of more than 11,000 Facebook groups that allegedly brokered fake reviews online

Amazon said the group’s operators are accused of recruiting people to write fake or misleading product reviews in exchange for free money or items. Release.

Fake reviews were a nuisance to Amazon for years It can lead to consumers buying unequal or questionable products. But the issue got worse during the pandemicWhen the demand for e-commerce spread and unscrupulous merchants found new opportunities to use fake reviews to boost their business. This trend has prompted UK regulators to open an investigation About whether Amazon and Google have harmed consumers by not adequately protecting them from fake reviews. Amazon and Google said last year they would cooperate with the investigation.

Tuesday’s lawsuit targets activity that allegedly led to fake reviews appearing on Amazon’s platform in France, Germany and Italy, JapanSpain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Amazon said the fake reviews covered a range of products for sale on Amazon from car stereos to camera mounts.

In its complaint, Amazon said it was taking legal action “in order to find out the identities of its managers, to shut down those groups, and to seek to give up the illicit gains they got from brokering fake reviews.” The complaint asks a Washington state court to issue a cease-and-desist order against the alleged fictitious review mediators, as well as damages and attorneys’ fees to be awarded to Amazon.

Amazon said Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has removed more than 5,000 fake review groups from the social network since 2020 as a result of Amazon reporting to the social media giant.

One of the Meta groups it removed on Facebook earlier this year was called “Amazon Product Review” and has more than 43,000 members, Amazon said, adding that mock review campaigns run across several major social media platforms.

“Groups that request or encourage fake reviews violate our policies and are being removed,” Meta spokesperson Danny Lever said in a statement provided to CNN Business. “We are working with Amazon on this and will continue to partner across the industry to address fake and spam comments.”