Programmer earns millions by selling low-quality ebooks

The term ´long tail´ takes on a whole new meaning with the scam by programmer Valeriy Shersnyov. Shershnyov published a number of worthless Kindle ebooks which sold well thanks to fake reviews. He earned millions doing this, and he cannot be legally charged for doing this either. Amazon was able to remove the worthless titles, but by simply changing the title and cover he was able to continue. This has now been stopped because Amazon discovered that all titles came from the same – unprotected – server. They discovered that he used thousands of different accounts and email addresses to write good reviews and to order a few copies of each title. This way he ended up in favourites. His scam shows that any new technology can be used to make money illegally. It also shows that a ´real´ book can be have its advantages.