From Pine View Farm

Internet Four Stars 2

New York regulators will announce on Monday the most comprehensive crackdown to date on deceptive reviews on the Internet. Agreements have been reached with 19 companies to cease their misleading practices and pay a total of $350,000 in penalties.

The yearlong investigation encompassed companies that create fake reviews as well as the clients that buy them. Among those signing the agreements are a charter bus operator, a teeth-whitening service, a laser hair-removal chain and an adult entertainment club. Also signing are several reputation-enhancement firms that place fraudulent reviews on sites like Google, Yelp, Citysearch and Yahoo.

There were also fake reviews of dentists, lawyers, and medical imaging services.

I know that some persons pay attention to online reviews. I rarely do, because I get comment spam almost every day from “SEO” outfits promising to boost ratings. Granting that there are things that you or your web person can do to make your site friendlier to search engines, third party SEO consultancy is by and large a fraud and a scam.

If you must read online reviews, read the ones here.

Via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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2 comments

  1. George Smith

    September 23, 2013 at 11:33 am

    How to Avoid Huge Ships, 400 dollars used and new, 285 5-star reviews. Ha-ha. Someone spent a lot of time on a good joke to make a point. 

     
  2. Frank

    September 23, 2013 at 12:55 pm

    It was a real book.  You can still find an entry on the Barnes and Noble website.

     

    It’s got its own Wikipedia article, which points out that it has become the butt of jokes on late night TV for years.  I think that’s why there are so many reviews and why it’s being flogged as sort of a collectors’ item.

     

    Having been a boater, I can attest that the subject doesn’t warrant a book.  It’s quite simple:

     

    1. Pay attention.
    2. Stay away.