Amazon deleted more than 200 million fake reviews in the past year

US tech giant Amazon says that it has deleted over 200 million fake product reviews from its websites worldwide in the past year as part of efforts to prevent and detect fraud and manipulation.

Amazon says that it's also increasingly taking legal action against companies that sell false or fictitious reviews. Since 2018, Amazon has filed 30 lawsuits against such firms in Germany alone, it says.

Considerably more false reviews were deleted in 2020 than just a few years ago, according to Amazon. The Seattle-based company says that it now spends 700 million dollars a year worldwide on employees and software dedicated to preventing and detecting this type of activity.

The tech giant founded by Jeff Bezos by isn't the only company cracking down on fake reviews. Sites that specialize in travel bookings, for example, have had issues with falsified hotel reviews.

However, civil lawsuits against agencies that peddle falsified reviews can be difficult because they often operate from abroad.