For the past week I have been getting an excessive amount of review spam by “Anonymous user XXXXX” accounts, ranging from 1 to 5 stars with no review content whatsoever. I have been reporting all of them and while most have been removed, for some strange reason the reviewers are allowing a single 2 star review while all the other reviews are removed, including a two star review, the exact same reviews contain absolutely no review whatsoever, just star ratings. Is there any reason why all of those reviews are removed but a single two star review is not?

The majority of these accounts were created on the same day of the reviews they posted as well, all of them are accounts of type “Anonymous user XXXXX”.

So far this has been my email inbox for the past week:

A user has left a review for your add-on, YouTube Plus. Rating:

1 out of 5 stars

Pending review https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/850050/

A user has left a review for your add-on, YouTube Plus. Rating:

5 out of 5 stars Review:

Pending review https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/850030/

A user has left a review for your add-on, YouTube Plus. Rating:

5 out of 5 stars Review:

Removed https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/849800/

Rating:

5 out of 5 stars Review:

Pending review https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/849790/

Rating:

5 out of 5 stars Review:

Removed https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/849747/

Rating:

5 out of 5 stars Review:

Removed https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/849551/

Rating:

5 out of 5 stars Review:

Removed https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/849537/

Rating:

5 out of 5 stars Review:

Removed https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/849516/

Rating:

1 out of 5 stars Review:

Removed https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/849404/

Rating:

5 out of 5 stars Review:

Removed https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/849244/

Rating:

1 out of 5 stars Review:

Removed https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/848847/

Rating:

2 out of 5 stars Review:

Removed https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/848473/

This two star review has been removed, yet another exactly like it has been approved multiple times…

Rating:

1 out of 5 stars Review:

Removed https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/848472/

And yet, for some strange reason, while all of the above have been removed, this one in specific with two stars has been approved twice already by the same reviewer: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/youtube-plus/reviews/849855/

It is exactly like all the others above, including another two star review which was removed, but somehow while all of them are removed, this specific one happens to be approved multiple times? Why?

I have also noticed that I am not the only one receiving this review spam, from the past year: https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/user-review-issue-spam/9830

Will there be anything done to control this kind of spam? Or should we, developers, just give up on AMO?