Here’s the deal – the other day someone left a comment posing as a contractor and spoke great things about a company whose product the post was about.
I remember seeing this same exact comment on another forum or blog a few weeks ago, so I did some googling. It appears that someone going by the same name left many dozens of similar high-praise comments on other sites about this company and its products. In some of those comments, the author refers to the company with “we” and “us”, in others he pretends to be a customer.
I removed the comment (for now), emailed the alleged shill, and then sent a note to the company to get me in touch with their PR/marketing guy(s). Noone has gotten back to me yet.
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So… what should I do? Out the alleged shill for their lies and deception? Forget this all happened and surpress the insult and anger caused by all this?
Here’s the kicker – I actually like this company’s products, and were going to write a glowing hands-on review about them. Should I still do that even though I believe the company, its reps, or paid shills are pretending to be customers as they blanket the web with fake reviews?
As you can tell, I am very frustrated by this and am having a hard time just letting it go. What are your recommendations? Please leave a comment, or you can send me a private email.
jeff_williams
It may not even be a person but a bot that just crawls the web for them. I don’t think there is anything wrong with reviewing their product but adding a bit about the comments you have found around the web. Unless you can trace the source IP you can’t be sure that it was actually the company that posted it. It could even just be an employee acting on their own.
uthscsaedu
If they don’t respond soon I think it’s pretty obvious.
If the products are good, I personally would still like to see a review
Stuart
Well, after a little digging, it looks like the IP traces to a city that neighbors the city where the company is located, maybe 15-20 miles away.
I don’t think this is an employee acting on their own, it’s a small company.
Googling the author’s name + the company name results in dozens of instances where this person left comments on websites, forums, blogs, and who knows where else.
Steve
I think you should write an honest review of the product. The commenter could be a dedicated employee acting on his own.
Stuart
I will still probably review the products as I normally would, but I’m not sure if I can stop myself from saying what I think about the company’s tactics.
Stacy
Ahh, astroturfing.
It’s technically illegal now, due to the FTC’s guidelines on “word-of-mouth” marketing.
For reference:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm
http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?id=1202433929986
Stuart
I knew that the FTC’s new laws govern bloggers (we always disclose the origins or our review and giveaway products anyways), but didn’t think it covers semi-anonymous commentors. Hmm….
Tom
I don’t know if the links are auto-generated, but if you can, you might want to remove the related link to: “Porter Cable Low-Profile Sander Giveaway Winner!” because I know I clicked through looking to see if that was a sly way of indicating who the culprit was.
Stacy
@Stuart: The commonly accepted interpretation is that it includes customer testimonials. If the commenter is posting on behalf of a commercial interest, they must disclose their business relationship.
Stuart
Tom, those links are auto-generated to connect directly related entries. Sometimes the blogging software is a bit excessive with them, sometimes it doesn’t do it at all. ToolGuyd’s current theme displays those “pings” as links, but used to include excerpts as well.
A LOT of the spam we receive are in the form of those ping/trackback links that lead to bogus spam sites, but about 95% of them are filtered out automatically.
Stacy, I didn’t know about that, thank you for the clarification!
BenGallagher
It seems like this situation is indirectly addressed in the terms of use for your site.”You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade, resell or exploit for any commercial purposes, any portion or use of, or access to, ToolGuyd.” To me, a shill post is an exploitation of access to ToolGuyd for commerical puropses. If you don’t want shill posts, authorized by the company or not, you might want to clarify or strengthen the terms of use for your site. Personally, I would revoke that user’s permission to post, as a starting point, and notify the associated company of your website’s terms of use. They should buy ad space if they wish to use your site for commercial purposes.
Stuart
Hmm, that’s also a good point to consider. I would not be as insulted or annoyed if they were only shilling here – it’s their spreading of fake reviews all over the web that is really digging under my skin.
Blair
Stuart,
A little late to the party, but what the heck, I think I would do an un-biased review of the tool, and then regardless of whether the review was good , or bad, post an addendum separately mentioning the previous situation.
I for one would be interested to know what you ultimately decide, and whether you found more information on this poster, or decided to just let it slide.
CJ Mizner
Out them… but explain how you feel about the products. The Engineers created the product then the manufacture produce the product. If they make a fine product they should receive the credit. The company marketing team or sales team is to blame here and they need to be identified. Engineering and manufacture should be treated separate from Marketing and Sales. As long as your identifying that their is something fishy then your informing us as consumers which then leaves your credibility in place. We can then continue to read your site and know that if something isn’t right you’ll let us know but also give us good product info
Stuart
The offending company is rather small, so for all I know, it could be the president/product designer himself that’s leaving the fake reviews.
My obligation is to act in the best interest of ToolGuyd’s readership. Because of that, I will likely follow through with the objective review of the offending company’s tools in the future.
Emails to the commenter and company for dialog have not yet been answered…
For the time being, I will sit on my hands until either they get back to me, or I settle on a course of action.