Amazon working hard to build bias into their review pages

One of my author friends tells me this has been going on for a long time, but it's the first time I've heard of it. Apparently Amazon won't let a person review a book if it deems, using some proprietary method, that the person "knows" the author.

http://imysantiago.com/2015/07/02/amazon-a-virtual-marketplace-or-big-brother/

I think it would be nice if they focused their attentions on getting rid of the bazillions of fake paid-for reviews of the other products instead of picking on authors, most of whom do get at least some of their sales through their personal networks and there's nothing wrong with that.

There is a change.org petition about this, FWIW.
https://www.change.org/p/amazon-com-amazon-change-the-you-know-this-author-policy