On the evening of June 19, Amazon announced the progress of its fight against unfair competition such as 'order brushing and false credit inflation' in China in 2024. Since this year, Amazon has won the first instance of four civil litigation cases involving order brushing in Shenzhen and Shanghai.
At the same time, Amazon supported the local law enforcement agencies in Shandong, Ningxia, Fujian and Jiangxi to carry out actions against four order brushing criminal cases, and the law enforcement agencies have arrested more than 20 people involved.
Since 2023, Amazon has sued 14 order brushing service provider groups in China and recently won the first instance judgment of four cases.
In these four civil litigation cases, the illegal services provided by the defendant service providers include but are not limited to 'ranking optimization', 'dropdown promotion', 'erging international reviews', 'posting direct reviews', 'associated videos', 'guiding positive reviews', and'second-kill control', etc.
The specific behaviors include: manipulating the ranking of product keyword search results through technical means; manipulating buyer accounts to generate false or misleading product reviews and associated videos; guiding sellers to post advertisements and products on foreign social media platforms and guiding buyers to go to Amazon to purchase products and write false reviews; inducing consumers on Amazon's sites to visit the sellers' websites or scan the QR codes on the sellers' cards to submit positive reviews by providing free warranties, giving gifts, etc. These services include order brushing and false reviewing based on false or real transactions.
In the first instance of the above cases, after the court's hearing, the services provided by the defendant service providers constituted unfair competition. The court ruled that the defendant service providers should stop the order brushing services, publicly declare to eliminate the impact, and compensate for the relevant losses. These cases are currently in the process of second instance trial.
In addition, the service provider in another civil case has actively sought a settlement, stopped its order brushing service, made financial compensation, and publicly declared to admit its unfair competition behavior and the negative impact brought about.
In addition to civil litigation, Amazon has also assisted law enforcement agencies in strengthening criminal crackdown. In the four criminal cases in Shandong, Ningxia, Fujian and Jiangxi, the illegal behaviors of the companies involved include but are not limited to hiring employees to act as 'online water army', posting paid positive or negative reviews for specific products, deleting negative reviews for sellers and profiting from it. At present, all four cases are in the stage of investigation.