Happened to me when I saw a book on the US site, I wasn't able to see all reviews, but there was a button to sort-of "apply" to get approved for seeing all of them.
It took five days, then I got this email.
Interestingly, they're not doing this on the European site, you can still see all reviews there.
EU laws probably prevent them from doing shady shit like this.
Hiding a review just makes me not want to buy it
I also think they're more cautious about the EU. There are less consumer protection laws in the US, so they get fucked first.
We don’t really have less laws. Just far less enforcement mechanisms. For instance I am supposed to be able to use my own modem, the FCC rules prevent ATT from forcing me to rent a modem. But the FCC hasn’t given a shit about anything since the 80s. So ATT forces me to rent a modem. Laws are only as good as their enforcement.
My favorite example is the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act, which requires manufacturers to honor warranty on products that you or a third party have worked on in the past unless the manufacturer can prove that the specific malfunction for which you're seeking warranty service was caused by the previous repair or modification.
Those "warranty void if removed" stickers are illegal.
It also prohibits manufacturers refusing to repair a product due to unrelated damage.
Wish I could go live in the EU
you can
Somehow I doubt it's that easy.
It's not. I'm in the UK, and ever since brexit (spits) I've wanted an EU passport. Pre brexit, I spent several years in European countries, had a home, a job, friends, etc. I'd intended to do it again later in life, and now I can't. Different countries have varying levels of strictness in what they require, but it's just not feasible for me.
Took some digging but holy shit yeah this is real
Thanks for confirming! That's the box I saw as well, after clicking on it it said I will get an email in five business days - and it really took the whole five days.
If you want to try it out yourself: This is the book where it happened. Despite that email I can see all of the reviews again, so maybe it's a feature they're testing out.
It's really shady to have a rating system and hide ratings within that system. Why have it at all then?
Remember Amazon is owned by a billionaire or someone who is a part of the sociopathic class. They only want you to buy they don't give a shit about what you care about just pressing that buy now button. The laws are supposed to force them to care about the shit we care about but, everyone on this planet in politics is a corporate shill so tough luck.
If you're talking about Bezos, he only owns 9% (or possibly even less now) of Amazon.
Huh til, it still is the source of his wealth, and the other 91% probably also goes mostly to rich assholes, however I'm sure the public will be holding the bag if Amazon ever goes down in valuation.
Maybe it's lazy on my end, but my first guess is that it would be in order to prioritize and normalize the AI summary. Basically a dystopic move towards trust me bro
feature
"To improve the user experience we are hiding things that were one of the primary reasons we became a monopoly."
To manipulate the market, is the only answer I can come up with. Why else would they do this?
I tried from canada on amazon US same as you i have to “apply” to get more review a fast search show they do that since at least since middle of 2025 on “ products in categories with high competitive pressure and potentially manipulable reviews “
Still don’t make much senses
So that's actually interesting though. I'm not necessarily condoning this behavior. But if they have identified that unscrupulous, fraudulent outside parties are potentially manipulating the reviews, and that is what's causing Amazon to block the reviews, then that might actually be a beneficial move on their part. It's Amazon, so I'm inclined to think they are the ones behaving badly, but this is at least a possibility.
I'd wager it's to prevent other AI trainer bots from scraping the reviews
Stop buying anything on Amazon
I haven't bought much from Amazon in years, but them being so prolific meant there were lots of reviews for me to read before buying the product somewhere else.
Good idea actually
I'd bet this is a move to prevent their reviews from being used to train competing AI systems.
I’ve used Amazon for many years. I hadn’t written a lot of reviews. Recently I’ve been getting a lot of shitty products. So I started writing bad reviews. Maybe others are doing the same now too.
There's a lot of fakes mixed in with regular inventory because individual sellers can send their products to have Amazon fulfill orders for them and Amazon just mixes inventory all together. This is why I don't buy a lot of name brand stuff from Amazon, especially things like shampoo as you don't know what you're getting.
They did actually stop co-mingling lately
Doesn't matter much in relation to reputational damage.
Too late. That should have never been a thing in the first place. It's common sense that it would be a problem.
There has been tons of products with fake reviews for over a decade as well by now.
I remember back when Amazon was a source for trustworthy products in the earlier days. Then they let the shady sellers in. Then they hid the country the product ships from. Then tolerated blatantly fake reviews. And now they're hiding the reviews they don't like? Why would anyone want to purchase anything from that service at that point?
If I want something I have to order online nowadays I'll go out of my way to find an online store that isn't Amazon. And if it's something I can't find anywhere else, I'd go on AliExpress. It's likely going to be a junk product but at least it's priced accordingly. Amazon products nowadays are just AliExpress products with a 5000% markup.
Interestingly, they're not doing this on the European site, you can still see all reviews there.
I wonder why this might be…
How bout you don't use fucking Amazon.
There is a lot of stuff where it's hard to find alternatives to Amazon, but books aren't really one of those items. Ditch Amazon, support your local book store. Your prime membership pays for Jeff Bezos' next helicopter ride while his employees are pissing in bottles during shift or just lying around dead somewhere
They already only show positive reviews unless you login
Stores everywhere...it's time to cut out the middleman (again). Getting an ecommerce website is not rocket science anymore.
Wooooooow. This is some of the biggest bs i've ever seen.
Interesting. See, what I did to make sure this doesn't happen is I simply stopped using amazon years ago
AI prevention?
Pathetic.
I saw the same restriction on the Swedish site
Amazon becoming like the Superstore.
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