Bug Zappers Are Swarming on Amazon

Call it a bug zapper, not a feature. Data from Fakespot, a service owned by Mozilla that helps consumers spot fake reviews and scams on shopping sites, shows a bizarre rise in the number of listings for bug zappers on Amazon over the past three years. At the same time, Fakespot has logged an increase in the number of negative or unreliable reviews for this product category. Saoud Khalifah, founder and director of Fakespot at Mozilla, says bug zappers are just one example of the convergence of recent trends in ecommerce: a growing number of listings from third-party sellers on Amazon.com, "Right now everyone has a different kind of determination of what'fake' means," Khalifah says. "In the book category, for example, you might see an author ask their friends and family to leave reviews and some people might see that as disingenuous.