A system error makes clear what everyone expected but couldn’t demonstrate: Writers and their friends anonymously give their own works high reviews on Amazon.
“Close observers of Amazon.com noticed something peculiar this week: the company’s Canadian site had suddenly revealed the identities of thousands of people who had anonymously posted book reviews on the United States site under signatures like “a reader from New York.”
“The weeklong glitch, which Amazon fixed after outed reviewers complained, provided a rare glimpse at how writers and readers are wielding the online reviews as a tool to promote or pan a book