RIP: Prolific Amazon Customer Reviewer Harriet Klausner (1952-2015)

Robotech_Master writes: Prolific Amazon customer reviewer Harriet Klausner passed away last week at the age of 67. Klausner was a controversial figure: She never gave anything a negative review, her review blurbs cast doubt on how closely she actually read what she reviewed, and received dozens of free books per week (which ended up resold on Half.com via her son's account). Nonetheless, for a time she was one of the most recognizable names to any frequent Amazon.com customer; it was rare to come across any popular title that didn't have a Klausner review. Not many reviewers have ever inspired snarky sites tracking their contributions.

2015-1952=63

[mache]

I am confused, doesn't 2015-1952=63 and not 67? Am I missing something here?

Re:

[riverat1]

I was going to say. I was born in 1952 and I'm not 67 yet.

Re:2015-1952=63

[Jhon]

They're metric years.

Re:2015-1952=63

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Obviously, an accident with a contraceptive in a time machine . . .

Re:

[rochrist]

Yeah, me too. I'm upset to find out I'm actually 67!

Re:

[riverat1]

Yeah, where's my Social Security and Medicare?

Re:

[davester666]

Discovery Math.

Time Lord

[Hognoxious]

Maybe that's how she was able to read so many books.

Re:

[hey!]

Curse you, you beat me to it.

Re:2015-1952=63

[Robotech_Master]

Yes, I transposed the digits when I subtracted. I corrected the story soon after I wrote it, but I'd submitted to Slashdot before that. Oops.

(Yes, yes, you may all point and laugh now.)

Re:

[grub]

The Editors Fail Again.

Re:

[Threni]

This is why the internet has an advantage over stuff that's been physically printed; it's trivial to make corrections.

Re:

[zippthorne]

Winston Smith, Is that you?

Re:

[grub]

Depends on the county.

Five star summary

[tomhath]

Well designed and highest quality. Would read again.

Re:

[Jayfar]

Her age has since been corrected to 63 in the linked article.

I give her 5 stars

[jaeztheangel]

She pretty much exemplifies today's online reviewer culture.

Re:

[Opportunist]

Don't know what you review, give either only good or only bad reviews and hope for free stuff?

Re:

[TheRealHocusLocus]

She pretty much exemplifies today's online reviewer culture.

RESTAURANT: communicate negative experience, get free meal.
AMAZON: give positive reviews on line, get free stuff.

Sometimes they fight back. This guy was essentially a walking Internet ad agency posing as an independent reviewer when it suited him [independent.co.uk]. The online world is full of people who tap into existing social traditions (eg, independent restaurant reviews) and try to give them a 'new modern edge' with no clue that there are established rules of conduct, such as paying for your meal (or) acknowledging in th

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I give her 5 stars

[Robotech_Master]

That's because it's really not necessarily the quality but the NUMBER of reviews that are important at Amazon. The more reviews something gets, positive OR negative, the more it tends to get featured near the top of its category. So by giving something a one-star review, you do it nearly as much good as by giving it five.

So says Chuck Wendig [teleread.com], noting that all the one-star protest reviews of his new Star Wars book helped it become a bestseller.

Re:

[whoever57]

Those people who believe that the "Free Market" will solve all problems and that government intervention (in this case in the form of health inspectors) is not required need to study this case.

It is well known that for free markets to function, they require good information, but what this shows is that it is very easy for the information to become corrupted. How then do "free markets" function in the face of corrupt information? They don't.

Re:

[whoever57]

Nice Scotsman you have there, but he's not a "True Scotsman".

Or, to put it another way, real free markets are about as common as unicorns.

Re:

[SharpFang]

People who shun central planning, giving the Soviet Union economy as example of over-regulated market being a failure, and claiming that shortcomings of other markets come from government regulation, tend to forget that there IS one country where the trade is completely free - not regulated by the government in the least. It shows exactly what you can, and should expect from a totally free market in the real world.

It's Somalia.

Never noticed

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't read reviews thinking about the reviewers by name specifically. I guess if you are interested in reviews of the content of a book, things may be different, in order to know if the reviewer shares your interests you may have to follow them and get to know them. Book reviews are not a review of the book, they are a review of the content of the book. Broke in 3 days, did not fit, it was the wrong color etc do not apply.

Kind intentions

[EthanDemurs]

She stated in an interview [archive.org] that she did it for lesser known authors who lacked a publicity machine behind them; so that machine she became. Quite a noble thing to do in your spare time, which she, apparently, had quite a bit of.

Re:

[tomhath]

I would agree with you if there was reason to believe she actually read those books. But pumping out canned reviews on books she got for free and then resold doesn't sound all that altruistic.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you're missing the point, because her reviews are, however, slashdot-worthy: she hacked publishers for (tax-free?) profit using a recursive algorithm. She identified a systemic weakness and repeatedly exploited it in the light of day for a very long time. She mined the richest veins of Amazon.

Re:

[EthanDemurs]

Her not reading them is a distinction without a difference. If we only believe that her goal was to shine some light on unpopular authors then her canned reviews and reselling of the books can be seen as some sort of moral commission. That's only if we believe that statement.

Re:

[Black Parrot]

Might have something to do with that story voting thingy.

Do you understand what a nerd is?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

She's an obscure hero/villain, of course this story belongs on Slashdot. The question is whether you do.

Re:

[PopeRatzo]

I give this thread no fucking stars.

Re:Does anyone care?

[Robotech_Master]

Back in the day, she was a hugely controversial figure among book nerds. As the Slashdot poster added to my submission, Not very many people can inspire snarky sites tracking their contributions, analyzing their statistics, and outright accusing them of fraud simply from the act of posting consumer reviews to an e-commerce site.

The fact that such a thing is even possible could be taken as a metric of just how broadly the Internet has affected our lives.

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[Hognoxious]

outright accusing them of fraud simply from the act of posting consumer reviews to an e-commerce site.

Which isn't what happened.

The fact that such a thing is even possible could be taken as a metric of just how broadly the Internet has affected our lives.

Not sure what you mean by this, if indeed it means anything more than "life is like a glass of beer". There are at least four interpretations.

Re:

[Robotech_Master]

She didn't post consumer reviews to an e-commerce site?

Re:Does anyone care?

[maeka]

Accusing someone of a fake review is not the same as accusing them of fraud.

How is it not? She financially benefited from writing fake reviews while claiming they were real. She violated multiple Amazon terms of service to receive compensation.

Re:Does anyone care?

[Robotech_Master]

It's not that the reviews were "fake," it's that they were done for compensation (in the form of free books that she could then resell) without overtly saying so, which the FTC considers deceptive [ftc.gov].

Re:Does anyone care?

[maeka]

and outright accusing them of fraud simply from the act of posting consumer reviews to an e-commerce site.

She averaged, what?, three book reviews a day, for years. Mostly new books too, it isn't like she was sitting in front of her computer writing reviews for books she had read decades before.

Unless you're suggesting she actually read all of those books the fraud accusation is just, and unless you knew her personally to have read all of those books the suspicion of fraud is reasonable

Re:

[halivar]

If my wife has a free day, she absolutely can and does read three trashy pulp novels in a day. She browses 2nd & Charles and picks out their whole inventory of Eagle publishing books on a Friday and has them finished by the end of the weekend. Not saying this is proof, just that it's believable.

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[maeka]

Right. Ignoring the fact I was wrong and she was averaging more like 6 books a day, the fact remains that suspicions and charges of fraud are reasonable.

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[MightyMartian]

I feel quite the same way about you.

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[invictusvoyd]

Jeff Besos

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[tehcyder]

What kind of dope reads amazon reviews anyway. Anyone with a brain knows most are total bullshit.

To be fair, they can be quite funny.

Amazon "cleaning up" dubious reviews

[Mister Transistor]

Man, I didn't think they'd go that far!

serviscope_minor is on holiday today

[Hognoxious]

Your silence about all the MEN posting fake reviews says it all. Come and see the bias inherent in the system!

Re:

[tomhath]

Get over your own bias. All GP did was use the correct pronouns; there was nothing sexist in that post nor any reason to mod it down.

Reductio

[jabberw0k]

I would write a comment, but it would be a review of a review of a reviewer. If this confuses you, perhaps you should review.

Re:

[Herkum01]

I reviewed your comment( but I did not read it), 4 out of 5 stars.

What's the expression?

[Type44Q]

What's the expression? Ah, yes:

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Nice business model

[QuietLagoon]

Spam the Amazon book reviews with tons of reviews -> receive lots of free books as a result of that spamming -> sell the free books -> $$$

Slamming an obscure person after they're dead ...

[Dragon Bait]

Well, frankly, no matter how repugnant the person was, publicly slamming an obscure person after they're dead and have no chance of defending themselves seems reasonably petty. Given how vehement Robotech_Master is on the subject, one has to wonder how she personally offended him (note: this is rhetorical, no one but RM cares).

Don't Hate the Playa. Hate the Game.

[michaelcole]

Don't Hate the Playa. Hate the Game.

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[xushi]

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Nice algorithms you have here...

Funeral?

[Guppy]

Looking forward to the many eulogies to be delivered by strangers who did not actually attend her funeral.

I gave a negaive Amazon review once

[thinkwaitfast]

and it was rejected. I don't know why. It was honest, objective, non-inflammatory. Just a boring review of how something broke in he first 3 months of lighter than typical usage (stopped working, no warranty).
The reason given for the rejection was that it did not talk about the product directly. I said it worked fine until it stopped working and questioned the build quality. I stopped writing bad reviews after that, not that I've had another bad or defective product.
I noticed on other sites many people ha

Re:

[Quirkz]

Hm. Amazon certainly has plenty of negative reviews out there. Pretty weird that yours was flagged. I think I wrote one that wasn't just negative, but even included the phrase "this atrocity of a game" and they still let it through. Of all my reviews, it's the one voted most helpful, even. Maybe it got pulled in exchange for the replacement?