Claims and skepticism (front, chapters 2 and 3)

• Phillip Nelson. “Information and Consumer Behavior.” Journal of Political Economy 78(2), 1970.
• Michael R. Darby and Edi Karni. “Free Competition and the Optimal Amount of Fraud.” Journal of Law and Economics 16(1), 1973.
• Gary T. Ford, Darlene B. Smith and John L. Swasy. “Consumer Skepticism of Advertising Claims: Testing Hypotheses from Economics of Information.” Journal of Consumer Research 16(4), 1990.
• Federal Trade Commission. Policy Statement Regarding Advertising Substantiation, 1984. Health Products Compliance Guidance, December 2022.
• PowerReviews data as reported by the Spiegel Research Center, “From Reviews to Revenue,” 2021.

Reviews and sales (chapter 4)

• Judith A. Chevalier and Dina Mayzlin. “The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews.” Journal of Marketing Research 43(3), 2006. NBER working paper.
• Michael Luca. “Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com.” Harvard Business School Working Paper 12-016, 2011, revised 2016.
• Sherry He, Brett Hollenbeck and Davide Proserpio. “The Market for Fake Reviews.” Marketing Science 41(5), 2022.
• Tom Collinger, Edward Malthouse, Ewa Maslowska and Yorgos Askalidis. “How Online Reviews Influence Sales.” Spiegel Research Center, Northwestern University, 2017.
• Ewa Maslowska, Edward C. Malthouse and Vijay Viswanathan. “Do customer reviews drive purchase decisions? The moderating roles of review exposure and price.” Decision Support Systems 98, 2017.

Who writes, herding and drift (chapters 5 to 7)

• Jakob Nielsen. “Participation Inequality.” Nielsen Norman Group, October 2006. Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, Penguin Press, 2008.
• Nan Hu, Paul A. Pavlou and Jennifer Zhang. “Overcoming the J-Shaped Distribution of Product Reviews.” Communications of the ACM 52(10), 2009.
• Leif Brandes, David Godes and Dina Mayzlin. “Extremity Bias in Online Reviews: The Role of Attrition.” Journal of Marketing Research 59(4), 2022.
• Eric T. Anderson and Duncan I. Simester. “Reviews Without a Purchase: Low Ratings, Loyal Customers, and Deception.” Journal of Marketing Research 51(3), 2014.
• Spiegel Research Center. “Self Motivated vs. Prompted Reviews,” 2021.
• Lev Muchnik, Sinan Aral and Sean J. Taylor. “Social Influence Bias: A Randomized Experiment.” Science 341(6146), 2013. Counts from Smithsonian, 2013; Sean Taylor’s summary.
• Matthew J. Salganik, Peter Sheridan Dodds and Duncan J. Watts. “Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market.” Science 311, 2006.
• Xinxin Li and Lorin M. Hitt. “Self-Selection and Information Role of Online Product Reviews.” Information Systems Research 19(4), 2008.
• David Godes and José C. Silva. “Sequential and Temporal Dynamics of Online Opinion.” Marketing Science 31(3), 2012.
• Wendy W. Moe and David A. Schweidel. “Online Product Opinions: Incidence, Evaluation, and Evolution.” Marketing Science 31(3), 2012.
• Evan Miller. “How Not To Sort By Average Rating,” 2009, and its companion on ranking items with star ratings.
• Federal Trade Commission. FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Independent Retail Website (Cure Encapsulations), February 26, 2019.

Asking and showing (chapters 8 and 9)

• Gordon Burtch, Yili Hong, Ravi Bapna and Vladas Griskevicius. “Stimulating Online Reviews by Combining Financial Incentives and Social Norms.” Management Science 64(5), 2018.
• Baojun Gao, Jing Wang, Xiaojie Ding and Yue Guo. “The Pitfalls of Review Solicitation: Evidence from a Natural Experiment on TripAdvisor.” Management Science 71(2), 2025.
• Federal Trade Commission. Featuring Online Customer Reviews: A Guide for Platforms, January 2022.
• Google. Maps user-generated content policy: prohibited and restricted content, read September 2026.
• Danit Ein-Gar, Baba Shiv and Zakary L. Tormala. “When Blemishing Leads to Blossoming: The Positive Effect of Negative Information.” Journal of Consumer Research 38(5), 2012.
• Federal Trade Commission. Fashion Nova will pay $4.2 million, January 25, 2022; order finalized, March 2022.

Origin, handmade and effort (chapter 10)

• George E. Newman and Ravi Dhar. “Authenticity Is Contagious: Brand Essence and the Original Source of Production.” Journal of Marketing Research 51(3), 2014. Yale Insights summary.
• Christoph Fuchs, Martin Schreier and Stijn M. J. van Osselaer. “The Handmade Effect: What’s Love Got to Do with It?” Journal of Marketing 79(2), 2015.
• Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton. “The Labor Illusion: How Operational Transparency Increases Perceived Value.” Management Science 57(9), 2011.
• Ryan W. Buell, Tami Kim and Chia-Jung Tsay. “Creating Reciprocal Value Through Operational Transparency.” Management Science 63(6), 2017.
• Federal Trade Commission. Made in USA Labeling Rule, Federal Register, July 14, 2021; 16 CFR Part 323; Made in USA enforcement, 2021 to 2024; warning letters, July 8, 2025.
• Federal Trade Commission. Williams-Sonoma will pay record $3.175 million civil penalty, April 26, 2024.

The rules (chapter 11)

• Federal Trade Commission. Final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials, August 14, 2024; 16 CFR Part 465; warning letters to 10 companies, December 22, 2025.
• Federal Trade Commission. Adjustments to Civil Penalty Amounts, Federal Register, January 17, 2025 ($53,088 per violation from that date).
• Davis Wright Tremaine. On the FTC’s revised Endorsement Guides, July 2023. FTC, Notice of Penalty Offenses on endorsements, October 13, 2021.
• Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Review Fairness Act: What Businesses Need to Know, 2017.
• Federal Trade Commission. Green Guides; request for comment, December 20, 2022. BWD Strategic, Green Guides status, checked September 23, 2026. Packaging Dive, “Green Guides updates still pending,” February 2025.
• European Commission. Questions and answers on Directive (EU) 2024/825. Irish Department of Enterprise, Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition.
• European Commission. “Protecting consumers from misleading reviews: 55% of screened websites violate EU law,” January 20, 2022.
• Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Schedule 20; commencement on April 6, 2025 by S.I. 2025/272. Competition and Markets Authority, Fake reviews guidance (CMA208) and Consumer protection enforcement guidance (CMA58), April 4, 2025.
• Competition Bureau Canada. Keurig Canada to pay $3 million penalty, January 6, 2022.

Grading the canon (chapter 12)

• Noah J. Goldstein, Robert B. Cialdini and Vladas Griskevicius. “A Room with a Viewpoint.” Journal of Consumer Research 35(3), 2008.
• Gerd Bohner and Lena E. Schlüter. “A Room with a Viewpoint Revisited: Descriptive Norms and Hotel Guests’ Towel Reuse Behavior.” PLoS ONE, 2014.
• Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper. “When Choice Is Demotivating.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79(6), 2000. Benjamin Scheibehenne, Rainer Greifeneder and Peter M. Todd, “Can There Ever Be Too Many Options? A Meta-Analytic Review of Choice Overload.” Journal of Consumer Research 37(3), 2010.