[OPLIN 4cast] OPLIN 4cast #511: Catfishing in Amazon

Wed Oct 12 10:30:06 EDT 2016

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OPLIN 4cast #511: Catfishing in Amazon
October 12th, 2016

[image: Portrait of a liar] If you were hoping to get some tips about the
best way to catch catfish in the Amazon River, our apologies; that’s not
what this blog post is about. This post is about people who sell ebooks on
Amazon.com that are written by fictitious authors, another example of the
practice sometimes called “catfishing.” The term supposedly derives from
the 2010 documentary film *Catfish*
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish_(film)>, in which people lie online
about their true identities. While catfishing ebooks by lying about the
identity of the author is not a new phenomenon, it does seem to be a
surprisingly persistent practice, and is apparently entirely legal, if a
bit unethical.
- How an industry of ‘Amazon entrepreneurs’ pulled off the Internet’s
craftiest catfishing scheme
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/10/21/how-an-industry-of-amazon-entrepreneurs-pulled-off-the-internets-craftiest-catfishing-scheme/>
(Washington Post | Caitlin Dewey)  “The catfishing process varies according
to the specific ‘entrepreneur’ using it, but it typically follows the same
general steps: After hiring a remote worker to write an e-book for the
Kindle marketplace, Amazon’s e-book store, publishers put it up for sale
under the name and bio of a fictional expert. Frequently, Kindle
entrepreneurs will then buy or trade for good book reviews. … At the end of
this process, they hope to have a Kindle store bestseller: something with a
catchy title about a hot topic, such as gambling addiction or weight loss.”
- Revealed: How one Amazon Kindle scam made millions of dollars
<http://www.zdnet.com/article/exclusive-inside-a-million-dollar-amazon-kindle-catfishing-scam/>
(ZDNet | Zack Whittaker)  “The server installed the Selenium web driver, a
browser automation tool, which simulates a real person typing in the
accounts’ usernames and passwords, one after the other. Not all logins will
be successful. Some are blocked or banned. If that happens, the table would
log the the failure, and move on to the next account. The fake accounts
would download hundreds of these ebooks over a short period of time —
usually a few hours. Each promoted ebook can be offered for free for a
short period of time, allowing the downloads to run at no additional cost.
Free books don’t generate royalties, but they do help to raise an ebook’s
visibility in the Amazon charts.”
- Fake e-book reviews: A legal guide to understanding & navigating
<http://www.business.com/legal/everything-you-need-to-know-about-fake-ebook-reviews-a-legal-guide/>
(Business.com | Dan Warner)  “Before we dive into the legality v.
illegality of fake e-book reviews, it’s important to make a clarification.
Some people mistakenly believe that using ghost writers is, in-and-of
itself, against the law and Amazon’s terms of use. Not true. It is 100
percent legal to commission a work of writing from another party. (How do
you think all those reality stars get book deals?)”
- Don’t necessarily judge your next e-book by its online review
<http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/10/26/451993322/dont-necessarily-judge-your-next-e-book-by-its-online-review>
(NPR | interview with Caitlin Dewey)  “Obviously, using a pseudonym is not
illegal. The problem is, that in a lot of cases, these people are inventing
a fictional persona with expertise that they don’t actually have. On top of
that, they’re buying these fake reviews, which is explicitly against
Amazon’s terms of service. … Unfortunately, the bottom line is you can’t
necessarily trust the reviews.”

*Articles from Ohio Web Library <http://ohioweblibrary.org>:*

   - ‘Catfishing’ gets its first legal mention.
   <http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.oplin.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=87471784>
   (*Forbes.com*, 4/26/2013 | Kashmir Hill)
   - How Amazon can win battling fake reviews.
   <http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.oplin.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=112218468>
   (*InsideCounsel*, Jan. 2016, p.13)
   - How to spot fake online reviews.
   <http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.oplin.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=116093394>
   (*Money*, July 2016, p.30 | Lisa Lee Freeman)

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