Brooklyn Yogurt Shop Sting Snares Fake Reviewers For NY Attorney General 168
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Reuters reports that nineteen companies caught writing fake reviews on websites such as Yelp, Google Local and CitySearch have been snared in a year-long sting operation by the New York Attorney General and will pay $350,000 in penalties. The Attorney General's office set up a fake yogurt shop in Brooklyn, New York, and sought help from firms that specialize in boosting online search results to combat negative reviews. Search optimization companies offered to post fake reviews of the yogurt shop, created online profiles, and paid as little as $1 per review to freelance writers in the Philippines, Bangladesh and Eastern Europe. To avoid detection the companies used 'advanced IP spoofing techniques' to hide their true identities. 'This investigation into large-scale, intentional deceit across the Internet tells us that we should approach online reviews with caution,' said Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. 'More than 100 million visitors come to Yelp each month, making it critical that Yelp protect the integrity of its content,' said Aaron Schur, Yelp's Senior Litigation Counsel."
Re:..as little? (Score:4, Informative)
Depends on your perspective. If your perspective is a Bangladesh worker, it's huge. If your cost perspective is an American spender, it's tiny. This article is written for first-world readers, so $1 is tiny.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Used advanced IP spoofing? Where's Carmen Ortiz? (Score:5, Informative)
Where are the feds with this one? IP spoofing was one of the charges the feds used to intimidate Aaron Swartz.
Been Going On For A Long Time (Score:4, Informative)
This kind of thing has been going on for as long as there have been online comments about products. One of the first sites I ran was an infomercial product review site. I got some great reviews saying how good or awful products were (tip: don't buy Epil-Stop). I would also get a sudden flood of positive reviews on a product. At that time, the fake reviewers weren't too sophisticated so you could tell that the 100 positive reviews from 100 "different people" were coming from the same IP address. I'd junk them but even at the time it was a lot of effort for what was a one man operation. I can sympathize with the comments moderation teams at Yelp, Amazon, and any other place that accepts user comments on products but tries to weed out fake ones.
Re:cost of doing business (Score:5, Informative)
>And what rules were broken
http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/nycode/GBS/22-A/350-a [findlaw.com]
Don't be a dumbass, there has been false advertising laws for years to deal with issues like this in meatspace. Lying out of your ass about products your are selling has nothing to do with free speech.
Re:wouldn't that be yelps problem? (Score:3, Informative)
It's a myth. Negative yelp reviews will often stay there, no matter the company. 5 years ago or so these accusations were being made, it seems some Yelp salesmen were making unwarranted claims that advertising would make their negative reviews go away. So Yelp made their filtered reviews publicly available.
Sorry to stand up for the big guys and obviously there is some fraud going on, but "pay yelp to get rid of negative reviews" isn't one of them.