Astroturfing In Apple App Store Stopped By FTC
Apple was doing really great with the iPhone Touch, iPhone and iPad applications. These are accessible at the Apple App Store. Various financial estimates place Apple’s annual profit at more than $ 400 million, and some consider that estimate to be conservative. But evidently that money has done little to motivate Steve Jobs and business to make the App Store an honest place for techies to shop. There is a lot of makers making their products look amazing by giving it fake reviews, also called Astroturf marketing. Knowing which applications are worth your time is much harder. This means it is even more difficult to pick applications. The Federal Trade Commission has to come in and change things, says the New York Times.
FTC hopes Reverb Communications will settle Astroturfing case soon
Reverb Communications, California marketing business, and Tracie Snitker who’s the key executive say it will remove from iTunes all fake apps within the store. From November 2008 to May 2009, Reverb had its employees writing optimistic reviews for its clients applications which is what makes it be charged with deceptive advertising. Reviewers of Astroturf paid for these reviews. Digital Leisure, Harmonix and MTV Games were a part of the 60 game production clients Reverb had. The Times reports that Reverb and Snitker are forbidden from “making comparable endorsements of any product or service without disclosing any relevant connections,” because of the FTC.
Snitker claims Reverb’s actions were legal
Reverb agreed with the FTC, but then Snitker said that Reverb didn’t do anything wrong but just wanted to stop the legal fight and get it over with. However, recent FTC rules that were believed to be targeted specifically at bloggers participating in product endorsement payola apparently also apply things like App Store reviews; the FTC simply hadn’t started to enforce the law in full yet. Online advertising will be more truthful following the FTC’s actions, says Harvard Law Professor Jonathan Zittrain. “This case sort of shows that what they have in mind is not the individual blogger or Twitterer, but rather a professional endorser. When a client says ‘Where are my good reviews?’ you can say, ‘We can’t do it because it is illegal.’”
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NY Times
nytimes.com/2010/08/27/technology/27ftc.html?_r=5
