Edited to add: I think it takes into account how many people vote your reviews as helpful. I got a lot of helpful votes because I received books weeks or months before they were released (I had a book review blog) and would post reviews on the release date so they would be one of the first reviews up.

So to the fakery professionals, it’s an industry leaderboard.

To you and me, who have need to spot fake reviews, it’s a singularly valuable sample of what to be on guard against. So thanks, Amazon, for clueing us in to just how rotten your system really is!