AP: Glitch identifies Amazon reviewers

February 14, 2004
The Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Many sign their names. Many don't. They're the book reviewers on Amazon.com who use such words as "masterful," "page-turner" and "tear-jerker." But the ones who sign their critiques only as "a reader from (fill in the city)" lost their anonymity this week when their identities were revealed on Amazon.com's Canadian Web site.

Among those named were authors who posted glowing reviews of their own work, apparently to boost sales.

The glitch, reported Saturday by The New York Times, replaced pseudonyms with reviewers' real names, laying bare a culture of self-promotion and potential for revenge among authors and users of the online retailer.

Amazon spokeswoman Patricia Smith told the Times the problem, fixed after a week, was "an unfortunate error."

"We'll examine whatever happened and make sure it won't happen again," she said.

Amazon allows readers to write reviews without providing their names or other personal data, an aspect of the sites that the company says is popular. About 10 million reader reviews have been posted, a number that continues to grow.

One writer, John Rechy, confessed to writing a review of his new book, "The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens," under the pseudonym "a reader from Chicago," the Times said.

"That anybody is allowed to come in and anonymously trash a book to me is absurd," Rechy told the Times. "How to strike back? Just go in and rebut every single one of them."

The author of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," Dave Eggers, confirmed to the Times that he reviewed the first novel of friend Heidi Julavits, calling it "one of the best books of the year," after he suspected rivals had panned it anonymously.

"I've done that one or two times before, when I like a book and the reviews on Amazon seem bizarre," Eggers told the Times. "In this case I just tried to bring back some balance."

Commentary:

Has Amazon pulled these self-reviews, as they pulled John Lott's when it was revealed he had published comments under a pseudonym?

Where's the outrage from the Brady Bunch? Where is that Australian professor, screaming about these authors' 'unethical' conduct? Where are US News headlines, the Washington Post editorials, The Science magazine stories, the CATO Institute investigations, and the Slate.com (and every other left-wing website we can think of) attack letters, challenging the credibility of these authors?

Where are the apologies to Dr. Lott, who simply used a tactic many others have used to "bring back some balance" on the Amazon.com site, after rivals post attacks?

Answer: They don't exist, and they won't ever exist. Because these groups' outrage were never about his anonymous post to Amazon.com, and everything about the character assassination of one man who dared to tell the truth when it was unpopular to do so.

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Brady/HCI's personal destruction campaign against John Lott knows no bounds