Since launching ‘Bunco’ at the beginning of May, it has had 10 Amazon reviews, 8 on .co.uk and one each on .com and .fr.

Because there is only 1 review on Amazon.fr, the review from the US shown.

On the UK site, with 8 ‘native’ reviews, Amazon just includes a link to the US site. On the US site, there is no mention whatsoever of other reviews. I tried copying the UK reviews, with attributions, onto the .com site. They stayed there for around 24 hours than all vanished.

It is official policy, reviews can flow from .com out, but never in the opposite direction.

Essentially, Amazon is saying, ‘We’re not interested in what anyone outside of the US thinks about anything, but we know that the opinions of Americans are valued throughout the world.’

I’m trying to get BBC Radio 4 interested in picking this story up. Watch this space.

PS The .com review was written by an Italian, who downloaded ‘Bunco’ from Amazon.it, but she knew her review would get more visibility on .com!

Last word goes to Amazon ‘Customer reviews are one of the most valuable tools we offer customers for making informed purchase decisions, and we work hard to make sure they are doing their job.’ Oct 3 2016