Amazon has now permanently banned over 600 Chinese brands across 3,000 different seller accounts, the company confirms to The Verge. Amazon says that’s the grand tally after five months of its global crackdown, and it’s no longer being shy about why: a spokesperson tells us these 600 brands were banned for knowingly, repeatedly and significantly violating Amazon’s policies, especially the ones around review abuse. The South China Morning Post reported the numbers earlier, citing an interview with an Amazon Asia VP on state-owned television. The company offered $35 gift cards for reviews on a product that was sold directly by Amazon itself. Amazon banned the practice of incentivized reviews in 2016, but it’s a tricky business: some of these offers are disguised as a VIP testing program or an extended warranty.

Source: The Nation September 17, 2021 23:15 UTC