Internet Astroturfer Fined $300,000

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday that Lifestyle Lift, a cosmetic surgery company who posted fake reviews of their services on various websites, will have to pay $300,000 to the state of New York. Cuomo's office says this is the first US case to specifically target astroturfing on the internet. "Internal emails discovered by Attorney General Cuomo's investigation show that Lifestyle Lift employees were given specific instructions to engage in this illegal activity. One e-mail to employees said: 'Friday is going to be a slow day — I need you to devote the day to doing more postings on the web as a satisfied client.' Another internal email directed a Lifestyle Lift employee to 'Put your wig and skirt on and tell them about the great experience you had.' In addition to posting on various Internet message board services, Lifestyle Lift also registered and created stand-alone Web sites, such as MyFaceliftStory.com, designed to appear as if they were created by independent and satisfied customers of Lifestyle Lift. The sites offered positive narratives about the Lifestyle Lift experience. Some of these sites purported to offer forums for users to add their own comments about Lifestyle Lift. In reality, however, Lifestyle Lift either provided all the 'user comments' themselves, or closely monitored and edited third-party comments to skew the discussion in favor of Lifestyle Lift."

Comments

Re:So?

[CorporateSuit]

I had always known that people were planting fake reviews on forums and thought the only defense be cautious. So hearing that this is actually illegal is big news in my opinion.

Such a law is easily bypassed. All they have to do now is to buy some icecream bars with their names on a sticker on the wrapper, give it to 10 year old kids, and tell them to write down what they think of this flavor of icecream.

"Oracle is delicious! When my mom goes to the store, I want her to buy me more Oracle!"