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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."
We all know this shit goes on, all the time, but to email about it? they deserve more than 300k fine.. Will it stop this from happening? I doubt it.
What I really want to know is this: does this "anti-astroturfing" law apply to "Team Windows"? If so, watch out Softies, Cuomo's got your number....
My blog
Marketing department tells lies about their product. News at 11.
I had three Lifestyle Lifts and now have more confidence than ever. I look good, feel confident, and just landed a new high-paying job. I don't know why the government is giving them a hard time. Don't they have something else to do, like fight crime or win wars or something?
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
Sony got caught doing this a while back:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4741259.stm
The link is to the BBC coverage of the California court decision.
I found out about it after reading a Slashdot post panning one of the movies which was pushed this way.
As a company, you should be absolutely fine, unless you are so incredibly stupid as to put instructions like these down in writing, and making them so explicit that they cannot be read or weaseled out of in any conceivable way.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
The company gets a punitive fine, okay. But who gets the money?
A Michigan-based company lies on the internet, so giving the money to the State of New York doesn't make sense to me. I'm having a tough time specifying just which group was wronged by the company -- Michigan consumers, American consumers, all consumers who have access to the internet, suckers? Wouldn't the money be more appropriately given to the FTC?
Leave us alone !
Squirrel!
False Advertisement.
You and I can say anything about any product we want... that's our opinion. But if the company making a product makes claims that are untrue about said product it's False Advertisement. These people just try to hide it by pretending to not be affiliated with the company. That may even be in itself Fraud.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
The problem is not the fine. The problem is that the individuals who did this can hide under the corporation and not be held responsible. Why is it that if I did this on my own, I would personally be liable, but if I did so working for a corporation, the corporation is liable? Can I just do anything I want, so long as I have a shell corporation with a boss who tells me to do it?
If we held individuals responsible, then individuals would stand-up to the corporations and say no. But so long as they can clear their conscience by blaming their boss, and on up the chain, these things will happen. Oh, and punishing the CEOs doesn't fix it either, unless the CEO was really involved. Everybody seems to want to go to the person at the top. I want to beat the person at the bottom who actually did it.
The difference is that you KNOW YOU'RE WATCHING AN AD, paid for by the company. There are also usually disclaimers on the ad, if you look saying "actor portryal, actors potraying real customers, real customers compensated, real customer not compensated."
No, they aren't real and a majority of the public wouldn't mistake it for real either. Aside from that, things like "Male Enhancement" are ambiguous products with ambiguous claims. About the only thing solid you can pull away from the advertisement is "These characters claim to have a better sexual experience", but what does that mean? A better orgasm? What does THAT even mean? How do you even measure it? Even if the product did nothing on the physiological level, a placebo effect can certainly cause results on the psychological level.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
The problem is that you assume anyone here that actually LIKES MS' product (like me) is automatically a shill. I'm not a shill, I'm a person that was exteremly disapointed when I jumped to Linux, and thus jumped back. My Linux experience actually turned around my opinion of MS software. It was very much a case of "the grass is greener on the other side," only to find that not only wasn't it any more green, there were quite a few brown patches.
Hi! Billy Mays here with a completely new and revolutionary product called Internet Astroturfing! Read what thousands of our satisfied clients have to say about IA on popular blogs and forums ....
Haven't companies learned by now that if you are going to instruct your people to do shady/illegal stuff that you should NOT put it in a memo. Just go by word of mouth "hey bob, make some fake posts"....dumb asses
BTW I find politicians a bit hypocritical. In politics the tech writers will write a nice constituant letter about their politician. They will then give it to a loyal constituant and ask them to sign it. So the constituant never wrote the words, never had the experience, but because they like the politician they will put their name to it...and this makes it 100% perfectly legal. So the next time you see grandma who says her politician is the second coming of christ just realize the words/experience may have come from some paid writer and grandma just signed her name to it.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Yes, because no sane person could ever disagree with you.
While there are probably MS shills out there (just like every other major company), the fact that you specifically target them in a story not at all about Microsoft suggests that you're just anti-Microsoft, which really isn't much different from being a shill.
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.
That's the same NY Mom who appears as a California Mom, Texas Mom, Florida Mom and %ipaddress% Mom.
It's like the 17th Century, when pickpockets used to work the crowds who came to watch pickpockets being hanged.
All right, fess up, how much did Linus pay you to post that comment?
McDonalds sells hamburgers. Not the greatest hamburgers, but they are very convenient. People who have no real choice often end up at McDonalds. Although there is nothing really wrong with McDonalds, there isn't a whole lot right about it either. You might try Burger King and discover that you like McDonald's better. That much I can believe, but most people who want a better choice than McDonalds will go to a real restaurant.
So I can understand why you might legitimately dislike Linux. But most of the people who jump ship from MS in search of a better experience end up with Apple. A few of them might even go back to MS, but I have yet to see that happen in real life.
You may be a genuine McDonalds fan. There really ARE some people who have acquired a test for their food, even though the majority view it as a last resort. But in the computer industry, a lot of people get paid to express an opinion. Brand loyalty is a commodity to be bought and sold. So the pro-MS comments get a fair amount of skepticism, as would a glowing review of McDonald's cuisine.
Wow! You really miss the point. The lesson from Nixon is that the cover-up is what kills you.
Do a Google search for Lifestyle Lift. In the first three pages of Google results, ALL EXCEPT THREE are from web sites operated by Lifestyle Lift, apparently.
This is the most intense attack on social, psychological, and technical weaknesses than I've ever seen. In my opinion, it is likely to be dishonest.
And the company was only fined $300,000, an amount that is likely to be less than a day's income, I'm guessing.