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Companies are Suing Honest Reviewers and it’s Going to Get UGLY.

LMGcommunity
By LMGcommunity
in LTT Releases
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What if you couldn't trust any review on the internet? What if EVERYONE was being controlled by the companies that make those products? WELL that might be what is happening… Youtube Channel HouseFresh is facing legal backlash over publishing an honest review for the PuroAir 240 Hepa 14 unit. Does PuroAir have a case? Or is this just corporate bullying?

 

 

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I would love to have some sort of semi-regularly-updated list of domains for these affiliate farm sites to put into a DNS block list. By far one of the more annoying experiences on the Internet these days is time wasted reading the first several paragraphs of "listicle" articles before realizing what it is, backing out into your search results, and trying another one. Some sites are pretty obvious by their design, but others are less so.

 

I switched from Google to Kagi many months ago as my main search engine, and Kagi does an OK job of lowering search rankings of sites like these, but it does not do it perfectly and results like these still do show up sometimes. If I had a list of these domains, I could just block their DNS outright preventing me from wasting my time reading them. I could even put them in my Kagi preferences to filter them out of my search results...

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There's a lot of sketchy Reddit activity in this area as well:

Seemingly to farm affiliate links via Reddit.

 

Example subreddits with just a bunch of spammy reviews for affiliate links:

- Usefulsubreddit

- honesttechreviews

- SmartHomeFinds

 

They also generally link to: RecoGoods -

 

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So you go out and make a quality production showing how a company allegedly took a cheep air purifier and threw a name on it, sold it for 10x the amount, used shady affiliate marking to sell it to thousands of unknowing customers, then they allegedly sue a reviewer and you say: 

What?  I almost feel like I'm missing an obvious bit of sarcasm. Peculiar thing to say in this sort of video? 

Am I missing something? 
 

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5 minutes ago, djenson said:

So you go out and make a quality production showing how a company allegedly took a cheep air purifier and threw a name on it, sold it for 10x the amount, used shady affiliate marking to sell it to thousands of unknowing customers, then they allegedly sue a reviewer and you say: 

What?  I almost feel like I'm missing an obvious bit of sarcasm. Peculiar thing to say in this sort of video? 

Am I missing something? 
 

I can clarify a bit here. This quote was tied to me stating that doing things like using off shore manufacturing, having a mark up, having crazy affiliate deals isnt out of the norm, and for THAT I don't think they are a devil in disguise. And the 2 individuals I chatted with at Puroair also don't seem like people who are maliciously going after every single little bad thing (That I could tell at least)

BUT What was wrong was the suing of a reviewer. I address this in my section just before this by mentioning that they are using the markup to leverage their place in the review space. THATS major issue

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1 hour ago, djenson said:

So you go out and make a quality production showing how a company allegedly took a cheep air purifier and threw a name on it, sold it for 10x the amount, used shady affiliate marking to sell it to thousands of unknowing customers, then they allegedly sue a reviewer and you say: 

What?  I almost feel like I'm missing an obvious bit of sarcasm. Peculiar thing to say in this sort of video? 

Am I missing something? 
 

I think it's about having a response that is proportional. It's appropriate to call this bad behavior our publicly and tell people to avoid this brand. It would not be a proportional response to harrass their employees, send hate mail to the CEO's mom, etc. 

 

It can be eye opening to realize that most employees at companies, even ones that have poor practices like these, are just ordinary people, and sometimes they make poor moral judgements for being complicit in something. 

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Something similar is happening to a home inspector CyFy Home Inspections. He makes videos showing the things he finds on new construction homes, showing you what's wrong and even quotes the legal building code and tells you how it should be. Some things are just obvious safety issues, like support trusses or beams not actually touching anything inside the roof (but plastered with a shotgun spray of nails). He gets harassed and given citations by the builders and their lawyers (and some other agencies too I think). Nothing he does is illegal or putting someone in danger, he's not doxing anyone when he inspects a home. 

 

Big companies silencing the little guys, who are just trying to be honest with their audience, is a genuine dystopian issue. I mean how the fuck is any of this legal? If I tried to silence LTT when they review "Brand A" power-supplies, I'd get shot down immediately by any lawyers or courts because I'm just some random person. But if I was a company, with a legal department, then somehow that makes it okay to the courts and legal system? My brain hurts, this heatwave is getting to me. 

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Something I've been doing the past few years is reverse-image-searching a product. Far too often a $500 product on Amazon leads to a seemingly identical product for $50 on alibaba.

It's a markup scam. Especially when they have those "30% off" vouchers. That's a huge red-flag that it was already more than 30% overpriced.

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This is why it's very wise for companies to contract subsidiary LLCs for certain parts of their business entity and use licensing deals with these LLCs and/or private contractors. There's a massive difference between a "media group" that works with dozens of subsidiaries who are signing licensing deals and who behaves like a media group (and directs customers to their family of IP licensers). On the other hand, we have media companies who publishes and operates under their own trademarks. 

 

Further: if search engines are not doing their job at being the YellowPages of the internet, perhaps it calls for a foundation that serves as a Yellow Pages for hobbyist resources & reviews that is structured perpetually to serve said purpose - much like the project of that Jimmy fellow. 

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I liked the Internet better when it was mostly random people with no commercial interest. 

 

Even the random alien sighting websites seemed more trustworthy in those days than the Youtube or Google homepage of today. At least you knew there was a real schizo with real passion behind hit. It was kinda endearing and sometimes something even made you go "huh".

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Reviewers getting sued for being honest is unacceptable. Tricking consumer sheep into buying stuff that's way worse than advertised should be looked into by regulators.

 

The internet is unusable without uBlock Origin + SponsorBlock. It's hard to watch anything on YouTube without some guy behind a camera saying "Buy [product] now!" , "Click on [affiliate link]!", or "Buy some stupid crap you don't need because I'm being paid to make a fake review and totally not an ad!".

 

LTT is only enjoyable to watch without ads and the segues to sponsors skipped. I don't want you to sell me shit, just show me the cool nerdy stuff!

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14 hours ago, Elijah Horner said:

I can clarify a bit here. This quote was tied to me stating that doing things like using off shore manufacturing, having a mark up, having crazy affiliate deals isnt out of the norm, and for THAT I don't think they are a devil in disguise. And the 2 individuals I chatted with at Puroair also don't seem like people who are maliciously going after every single little bad thing (That I could tell at least)

BUT What was wrong was the suing of a reviewer. I address this in my section just before this by mentioning that they are using the markup to leverage their place in the review space. THATS major issue

But it came directly after the section talking about the lawsuit and that a company couldn't get insurance anymore and that legal action is being threated again and the video after the quote goes on to talk sympathy for the alleged company because there's another airpureifyer brand suing them for unverified claims? Clearly I am missing something but how you put that in the video certainly didn't to me seem to contextually align with what that clarification. Clearly a me problem as I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else so other are able to obviously see the context. The comment obviously isn't made in bad faith, but still seems way out of place and unexplained in the video to me

 

13 hours ago, smcoakley said:

I think it's about having a response that is proportional. It's appropriate to call this bad behavior our publicly and tell people to avoid this brand. It would not be a proportional response to harrass their employees, send hate mail to the CEO's mom, etc. 

 

It can be eye opening to realize that most employees at companies, even ones that have poor practices like these, are just ordinary people, and sometimes they make poor moral judgements for being complicit in something. 

In which case, as in the case of dCS, you as the CEO find out what happened, Apologise and explain your side, and hope to make amends, you don't threaten legal action a second time?????

 

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1 hour ago, MC.Morrado said:

Reviewers getting sued for being honest is unacceptable. Tricking consumer sheep into buying stuff that's way worse than advertised should be looked into by regulators.

 

The internet is unusable without uBlock Origin + SponsorBlock. It's hard to watch anything on YouTube without some guy behind a camera saying "Buy [product] now!" , "Click on [affiliate link]!", or "Buy some stupid crap you don't need because I'm being paid to make a fake review and totally not an ad!".

 

LTT is only enjoyable to watch without ads and the segues to sponsors skipped. I don't want you to sell me shit, just show me the cool nerdy stuff!

I wouldn't call it unusable, and I don't like blocking ads or accusing creators of making fake reviews (so long as they clearly disclose sponsorship, of course).  These people making their living based on ads and, sometimes, sponsored videos; you don't have to watch the sponsored clips, but are you prepared to pay a subscription to watch the rest? And to do the same for websites that normally rely on ads?

 

That's the rub. You're not necessarily in this camp, but I see a lot of people who refuse to see ads but also aren't rushing to paid subscriptions. Like we expect people to work for free on full-time content production. You don't have to like the particularly obnoxious or deceptive ones, of course, but the ones who are making a reasonable effort to be accommodating and transparent should get paid either through ad hits or subscription revenue.

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17 minutes ago, Commodus said:

I wouldn't call it unusable, and I don't like blocking ads or accusing creators of making fake reviews (so long as they clearly disclose sponsorship, of course).  These people making their living based on ads and, sometimes, sponsored videos; you don't have to watch the sponsored clips, but are you prepared to pay a subscription to watch the rest? And to do the same for websites that normally rely on ads?

 

That's the rub. You're not necessarily in this camp, but I see a lot of people who refuse to see ads but also aren't rushing to paid subscriptions. Like we expect people to work for free on full-time content production. You don't have to like the particularly obnoxious or deceptive ones, of course, but the ones who are making a reasonable effort to be accommodating and transparent should get paid either through ad hits or subscription revenue.

I don't like Mrwhosetheboss because all that guy does is buy stupid shit for the sake of buying stupid shit; he's the Mr.Beast of tech YouTube. And I don't watch The Apple Circle because the host's voice is extremely annoying. iJustine is basically an NPC fangirl for Apple who is only 3 years younger than my mother (grown woman in her 40's). And Austin Evans is cringe.

 

Action Retro, Mental Outlaw, RoboNuggie, Jeff Geerling, and Explaining Computers are real people who tinker around with hardware and software in a way that scratches my autistic brain in the right places. Vex, Moore's Law Is Dead, Lecctron, and Gamer's Nexus are very good for the hardware review side of things. Louis Rossman is basically more reliable than anything put out by mainstream normie articles probably generated by AI.

 

LTT and MKBHD are alright; those channel lie in the decently watchable mid-tier. They don't hold a candle to Alex Ziskind and Explaining Computers but are good in their ways of showing an enthusiast like me how something would be presented to a normal person who doesn't even know how to use settings in Windows.

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air filters, from an engineering standpoint, you have a filter media and you have a fan, thats it.
the fan draws air through the filter media and it gets filtered to the abilities of the filter rating.
all the rest is just shapes and size and visual design and user interface, but the performance is determined by the filter and the fan strength almost entirely.
its wild just watching reviews on this stuff, like sure throw it in the room and live test it i guess.
 

it is to no surprise that because of this, the marketing for such a device is chaotic evil

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22 minutes ago, Required said:

Are I am the only one who dont trust any site for a review?

It’s going to be difficult to not have trust in any website for reviews, but making an effort to find trustworthy sources is important. It’s easy to spot ad farm listing sites and obvious nonsense, but there are plenty of reviewers and sites out there with good practices and information.

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