How to Remove Unfair Ratings from Amazon Customer Reviews

On Amazon, there is a feature called customer reviews, where you can post and view impressions of a product based on actual usage. Some people use the content written in these customer reviews as a basis for deciding whether to purchase a product. Others may search for reviews of products or services they already own, such as books they’ve read or movies they’ve watched.

While customer reviews undoubtedly provide valuable information, they can also be subject to unfair ratings. In this article, we will explain how to remove unfair ratings from Amazon customer reviews.

Overview of Amazon Customer Reviews

Amazon is an online shopping site born in the United States and operated by Amazon.com. Named after the world’s largest river, the Amazon, it offers a vast array of products, with over 200 million items ranging from books, music, electronics, apparel, baby products, to groceries. Originally a bookstore, Amazon is also famous for providing e-books (both paid and free).

When it comes to online shopping sites, the Japanese company Rakuten is also well-known. However, a significant difference between Rakuten and Amazon lies in their inventory management. Amazon purchases products from the stores that list on its platform and manages them as inventory. On the other hand, Rakuten does not hold inventory and merely provides a platform for product offerings. Amazon has also launched a service called Merchant@amazon.co.jp, which allows general business owners to list their products, leading to a further increase in the number of products.

When selecting and deciding on products on Amazon, the quantity and content of customer reviews can greatly influence your decision. In online shopping, you can’t physically handle or try out the products, so the photos posted on the product page and the evaluations from customer reviews directly impact purchasing behavior.

However, to be honest, the content of Amazon’s customer reviews cannot always be trusted. This is because Amazon does not pre-check the content of customer reviews. Considering the vast number of products, this is somewhat inevitable.

Among the reviewers, there are those who give low ratings or make criticisms unrelated to the product out of personal grudges against the seller or company. There are also people who deliberately give bad ratings without actually using the product as a way to vent their stress.

Given that the content of customer reviews greatly influences purchasing behavior, it can be difficult to ignore negative posts about a product. If actual harm, such as a drop in sales, is occurring, it may be worth considering deletion.

As mentioned earlier, Amazon is a service operated by a U.S. corporation. Therefore, when initiating legal proceedings against users believed to be Japanese within Japan, it becomes a court procedure against a foreign corporation, requiring translations of documents and some evidence. Furthermore, it is necessary to obtain the registration of the U.S. corporation.

Just these procedures alone can add about 200,000 yen in actual expenses, so it’s good to be aware of this.

If you want to know more about reputational damage from Amazon customer reviews, please refer to this article.

https://monolith.law/reputation/amazon-customers-reviews[ja]

Requirements for Removing Amazon Customer Reviews

To remove an Amazon customer review, it must be demonstrated that the review violates the guidelines. We will explain what constitutes a violation of the guidelines, after introducing the contents of the Amazon Community Guidelines.

Amazon Community Guidelines

When using customer reviews, including when viewing them, it is necessary to comply with the Amazon Community Guidelines. If you violate these guidelines, your post may be removed by the administrators.

Respect for Other Opinions

Amazon respects diverse opinions, and it is not considered a violation of the guidelines to indicate disagreement with the claims of other posters. However, from the perspective of respecting diverse opinions, the following actions are prohibited:

• Posting defamatory, slanderous, harassing, threatening, inciting, obscene, indecent, or lewd content
• Posts that infringe on the privacy of other customers (such as phone numbers, email addresses, addresses, etc.)
• Impersonating others or organizations other than oneself
• Erasing the posts of other customers
• Participating in slander or attacks on others

Promotional and Advertising Activities

From the perspective of community fairness, promotional and advertising activities for specific products are prohibited. For example, the following posts are prohibited:

• Posts about products or services of oneself or close relations (relatives, friends, business associates)
• Posts about products or services of one’s competitors
• Accepting requests from others to post in exchange for compensation, requesting posts in exchange for compensation, demanding compensation on the condition of posting
• Advertising or solicitation

Posts that Infringe on Rights

Posts that infringe on intellectual property rights or ownership rights are also prohibited. For example, if you copy and paste a review written on a personal blog and post it as your own opinion, there is a high possibility of copyright infringement.

Customer Review Guidelines

In addition to the above, there are specific guidelines for customer reviews as follows:

・If a review is removed or rejected for violating the guidelines due to being for commercial purposes, you cannot repost it even if you modify the content for the same product.

・Only the URL or link of a product sold on Amazon can be included in a review.

・Multiple posts of reviews for the same product by family members living together are prohibited.

・In order to maintain the best shopping experience, if we find abnormal review postings, we may restrict the ability to post reviews for the relevant product.

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=201929730[ja]

If a review that violates the guidelines is removed once, you will not be able to post a review for that product again.

How to Remove Unfair Ratings from Amazon Customer Reviews

Reviews that violate the community guidelines mentioned above can be removed by reporting the violation. Each post has a link to report violations, so click on this link, enter the reason, and submit it. (You need to log in to your Amazon account to report a violation)

If there is no link to report a violation, you should send an email to ‘community-help@amazon.co.jp’. By explaining which post you think is violating and adding the reason for the violation, you can report the violation.

By the way, the removal of seller ratings is done in a different way. Please note that the removal method introduced is only for the removal of customer reviews.

Claiming Illegality and Requesting Removal

When browsing the internet, you may find that removing customer reviews from Amazon is often said to be difficult. If your request for removal from the site has failed, consider claiming illegality as your next step. Claiming illegality for removal means asserting to the court that the customer review violates the law, and obtaining an order from the court for the site to comply with the removal.

When claiming illegality in online reviews, it is common to assert defamation. The requirements for defamation are “publicly indicating a fact and acting to lower the social evaluation of another person or organization”. For example, let’s say a cosmetic product review states, “This product contains substances harmful to the human body”. If this content is baseless, the reputation of the company known to be selling substances harmful to the human body will undoubtedly decline, so there is a high possibility that it constitutes defamation.

However, if this content is true (i.e., the cosmetic product actually contains harmful substances), this post can be said to have public interest, and there is a high possibility of escaping defamation. No matter how much a review lowers social reputation, if it can be said to contribute to the public interest by exposing the matter, it cannot be held criminally responsible.

Also, even if personal information such as phone numbers and addresses are written in the review, it is possible to claim illegality on the grounds of privacy infringement. However, privacy infringement is also prohibited under the Amazon Community Guidelines. No matter how low the probability of removal is, if personal information is properly listed, the site is likely to comply with the removal.

https://monolith.law/Japanese Defamation Law/Privacy Law[ja]

Illegal Removal Requests are Handled Through Provisional Dispositions

When asserting the illegality of a customer review and requesting its removal, we will introduce the procedure to be taken. This involves going through the courts, but instead of a trial, a procedure called a provisional disposition is used.

A provisional disposition refers to achieving the desired state before substantial deliberation in court. A provisional disposition order to “remove the review” will be issued before the trial. Although it is a provisional measure, it is a formal order from the court, so the site will almost certainly comply with the removal. The procedure takes an average of 1 to 2 months, which is faster than a trial, making it a commonly used method for removing online reviews.

However, in order for a provisional disposition to be granted, it must be recognized that the review is illegal. Legal arguments are required, such as what rights are being infringed upon and what facts can be said to constitute the infringement. These claims are difficult to make without professional legal help, so it is advisable to seek the assistance of a lawyer. Our firm has lawyers who are experienced in dealing with online defamation, so if you are troubled by unfair customer reviews, we would be happy to consult with you.

https://monolith.law/reputation/provisional-disposition[ja]

Identifying the Poster of Customer Reviews is Possible

In provisional dispositions, it is not only possible to remove inappropriate posts, but also to identify the poster who made them. Normally, when identifying the poster of an anonymous post, a provisional disposition procedure is first carried out to request the disclosure of the IP address from the site operator. Then, a lawsuit is filed to request the disclosure of sender information such as address and name from the provider identified by the IP address.

However, due to the unique nature of Amazon as an online shopping site, it holds user information (name, address, email address) as account information, not just IP addresses. In other words, it is possible to directly request the site operator to disclose the address and name without going through the process of requesting the disclosure of the IP address.

A lawsuit procedure is necessary to request the disclosure of the address and name. These pieces of information are important personal information, and the demand for the protection of the poster’s privacy also works. More careful discussion is required, so it is necessary to deliberate carefully in court.

https://monolith.law/reputation/disclosure-of-the-senders-information[ja]

Summary

We have introduced a method to remove unfair posts from Amazon customer reviews. If you can prove that a post violates the Amazon Community Guidelines, you can request the site to remove the review. First, use the ‘Report a Violation’ option for each post and try submitting a removal request.

If this fails and the post is illegal, it is also possible to obtain a removal order through the courts. However, in this case, as it is a procedure through the courts, you need to assert and prove that the post is in violation of the law.

Asserting legal content can be challenging without the help of a legal expert. Our firm has attorneys who are experienced in dealing with online defamation, so please feel free to consult with us.