Detecting Spam Review through Spammer’s Behavior Analysis

Online reviews about the purchase of a product or services provided have become the main source of user opinions. To gain profit or fame usually spam reviews are written to promote or demote some target products or services. This practice is known as review spamming. In the last few years, different methods have been suggested to solve the problem of review spamming but there is still a need to introduce new spam review detection method to improve accuracy results. In this work, researchers have studied six different spammer behavioral features and analyzed the proposed spam review detection method using weight method. An experimental evaluation was conducted on a benchmark dataset and achieved 84.5% accuracy

FAKE REVIEWS AND MANIPULATION: DO CUSTOMER REVIEWS MATTER?

With the prevalence of fake reviews across web and e-commerce platforms it has become difficult for the customers to make an informed purchase decision. Considering this we examine the influence of review manipulation on customer’s purchase decision. A qualitative approach employing interviews with frequent online shoppers was employed to explore the phenomenon. The results of the study suggest that customers accord recommendations from their social network more weightage than the reviews available on an e-commerce platform. Further, we found that customers apply either or both interactive and extractive strategies to deal with review manipulation. Keywords: information processing, review manipulation, fake reviews, grounded theory

Quality in Product Reviews: What Technical Communicators Should Know

Purpose: Measuring the quality of product reviews via helpfulness votes is problematic for several reasons. I delineate the components of product review quality in order to assist technical communicators who manage their organizations\u27 user-generated content in identifying quality content and in helping reviewers produce quality content.Method/Corpus: I analyze results from secondary research on product reviews and discuss six important components of review quality. I focus most attention on five components of review quality that technical communicators can assess—informativeness, valance, credibility, conformity, and readability—and briefly describe a sixth component—user characteristics. I also exemplify these components, drawing from a corpus of 8,973 product reviews gathered in 2013 from a variety of retail and review websites.Results: Based on this analysis, I recommend strategies that technical communicators can use (1) to identify these components of review quality, (2) to develop a rich data set from which they can glean consumer wants and needs as well as trends related to their organizations\u27 products, and (3) to help reviewers write better reviews.Conclusions: As the amount of user-generated content grows, the need to learn from it and the need to improve it grow. By using their knowledge and skills in new ways, technical communicators who manage and develop product reviews can stay relevant and necessary as organizations rely more and more heavily on user-generated content

Do Customers Perceive Reviews as Manipulated? A Warranting Theory Perspective

Online customer reviews proved to have an influence on customer’s purchase. However, most online reviews don’t always prove effective in guiding the purchase process, because of fake reviews. While e-commerce platforms do tend to incorporate ways to counter review manipulation, customer perception on review quality is more important. In this study we aim to understand the impression mechanism of online reviews. Using warranting theory, as theoretical lens we found that textual and review characteristics play a crucial role in forming an impression amongst the customers. Further, research suggest that higher contamination of reviews influence customers to perceive reviews less authentic

Review Manipulation: Literature Review, and Future Research Agenda

Background: The phenomenon of review manipulation and fake reviews has gained Information Systems (IS) scholars’ attention during recent years. Scholarly research in this domain has delved into the causes and consequences of review manipulation. However, we find that the findings are diverse, and the studies do not portray a systematic approach. This study synthesizes the findings from a multidisciplinary perspective and presents an integrated framework to understand the mechanism of review manipulation. Method: The study reviews 88 relevant articles on review manipulation spanning a decade and a half. We adopted an iterative coding approach to synthesizing the literature on concepts and categorized them independently into potential themes. Results: We present an integrated framework that shows the linkages between the different themes, namely, the prevalence of manipulation, impact of manipulation, conditions and choice for manipulation decision, characteristics of fake reviews, models for detecting spam reviews, and strategies to deal with manipulation. We also present the characteristics of review manipulation and cover both operational and conceptual issues associated with the research on this topic. Conclusions: Insights from the study will guide future research on review manipulation and fake reviews. The study presents a holistic view of the phenomenon of review manipulation. It informs various online platforms to address fake reviews towards building a healthy and sustainable environment

A Methodological Template to Construct Ground Truth of Authentic and Fake Online Reviews

With the emergence of opinion spam, scholars in recent years have been investigating how to distinguish between authentic and fake online reviews. In this research area however, constructing ground truth has been a tricky problem. When labeled datasets of authentic and fake reviews are unavailable, it becomes impossible to systematically investigate differences between the two. In light of this problem, the goal of this paper is three-fold: (1) To review existing approaches of developing ground truth, (2) To present an improved methodological template to construct ground truth, and (3) To conduct a quality-check of the newly constructed ground truth. The existing approaches are dissected to identify several peculiarities. The new approach invests in mitigating pitfalls in the current approaches. In the newly constructed ground truth, authentic reviews were found to be not easily distinguishable from fake reviews. Finally, new research directions are identified with the hope that scholars would be able to stay ahead in their relentless race against spammers

Integrating Consumer Feedback Into Business Marketing Strategies

Consumer feedback and reviews are critical to the success of businesses because 49% of consumers trust online reviews more than other sources. The purpose of this multicase study was to explore marketing managers\u27 strategies for using consumer reviews to improve marketing success, brand awareness, and their clients\u27 profitability. The conceptual framework for this study was built upon organizational theory and disruptive innovation theory. The participants were recruited through local events, social media, and e-mail. Data were collected from public online records and semistructured telephone interviews using 1 marketing manager from each of 5 marketing agencies in North Texas. Thematic analysis and methodological triangulation of the data revealed themes of marketing objective, response, and reputation management. Based on the findings, the successful businesses focused on building relationships with consumers, and the business leaders prepared responses to reviews to ensure appropriateness. Other marketing managers can review the findings\u27 relevance to create or enhance successful marketing strategies, which could help to increase profitability. The implication for social change is that jobs would be created for enhancing the local economy and residents\u27 standards of living

Design of Review Systems – A Strategic Instrument to shape Online Reviewing Behavior and Economic Outcomes

As online reviews play a decisive role in consumers’ purchase decisions, e-commerce platforms are using review systems strategically to obtain a competitive advantage. However, the strategic potential can only be leveraged if the review system is designed appropriately. Research on the design of review systems and the effects of design choices has not yet been summarized or synthesized in a review article. We aim to close this gap by providing a scoping review. In our synthesis we posit that the design of review systems moderates the impact of online reviews on economic outcomes and the factors that drive the formation of reviews. After reviewing current research findings, we identify gaps and provide a research agenda covering three key themes: Design features, environments, and devices

Three Papers on the Role of Information in Online Consumer Reviews

This dissertation is comprised of three papers. The first two papers investigate how the various informational elements of online reviews, including their textual portion, impact the perceived helpfulness of those reviews. The third paper proposes a methodological refinement to improve the process by which reviews and reviewers are ranked with respect to their helpfulness and has potential applicability in fake review detection. These three papers utilize natural language processing methods, including Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), which allows for the automatic analysis of large amounts of text with minimal human intervention.Ph.D., Business Administration -- Drexel University, 201