Are User Reviews Good or Bad for Businesses and Authors?

There are a plethora of perks for businesses to allow online user reviews – from transparency to backlinks -- but what about when a customer or reader posts a negative review? That can’t be good PR, right? And what if he or she defames the business, and the company ends up taking the user to court? It makes one wonder whether it's worth it to allow user reviews at all.

There are a plethora of perks for businesses to allow online user reviews – from transparency to backlinks — but what about when a customer or reader posts a negative review? That can’t be good PR, right? And what if he or she defames the business, and the company ends up taking the user to court? It makes one wonder whether it’s worth it to allow user reviews at all.

Several stories have popped up in the news lately regarding user reviews:

VentureBeat reported this week that Amazon deletes negative feedback about sellers that use its own shipping service, Fulfillment by Amazon.

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