{"id":1965,"date":"2013-09-26T13:28:10","date_gmt":"2013-09-26T13:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=1965"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:00","slug":"ripping-up-the-astroturf-new-york-settles-with-nineteen-companies-accused-of-posting-fake-consumer-reviews-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/ripping-up-the-astroturf-new-york-settles-with-nineteen-companies-accused-of-posting-fake-consumer-reviews-online\/","title":{"rendered":"Ripping Up the Astroturf: New York Settles With Nineteen Companies Accused of Posting Fake Consumer Reviews Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, September 26, 2013, by Ryan Niland
\nRegulators in New York announced a settlement this week<\/a> with more than a dozen companies it accuses of posting false and misleading customer reviews online.\u00a0 The settlement, reported to be worth over $350,000<\/a>, is the culmination of a yearlong investigation by the New York Attorney General\u2019s Office called \u201cOperation Clean Turf.\u201d\u00a0 The operation\u2019s name is a play on the term \u201cAstroturfing<\/a>,\u201d which refers to the practice of concealing the source of a marketing or public relations campaign so that it appears to have come from members of the public at large.
\nTo execute Operation Clean Turf, regulators created a fake yogurt shop<\/a> in Brooklyn and solicited the assistance of several \u201creputation-enhancement firms<\/a>\u201d that offer legitimate search engine optimization services.\u00a0 Several of these firms also volunteered to post fake reviews of the yogurt shop online on sites such as Yelp and Google.\u00a0 The investigation also uncovered several companies that posted fake reviews of their own services online.
\nAlthough Astroturfing has long been associated with low-cost services like restaurants and hotels, Operation Clean Turf uncovered fake reviews for a wide range of professionals<\/a> including dentists, lawyers, and an ultrasound clinic.\u00a0 For example, the chief executive of the US Coachways, a charter bus service, responded to his company\u2019s low ratings on Yelp by hiring freelance writers, requiring employees to post fake reviews, and even posting a five-star review of his own.\u00a0 In one particularly egregious case, an employee of the digital marketing firm Mainstreethost.com posted a fake review of his own firm on Yahoo!, complete with an explicit denial that the reviewer had any connection to the company.
\nOnline reviews have a major impact on producer and consumer behavior.\u00a0 According to the Attorney General<\/a>, 90% of consumers claim that online reviews influence their buying decisions.\u00a0 A 2011 Harvard study<\/a> found that raising a restaurant\u2019s rating on Yelp by one star can lead to a 9% increase in revenue.\u00a0 Researchers at Cornell<\/a> estimate that a one star bump in a hotel\u2019s rating on TripAdvisor allows the hotel to increase its room rates by 11% without adversely affecting occupancy rates or market share.<\/p>\n

According to the Attorney General, \u201c\u2019Astroturfing\u2019 is the 21st<\/sup> century\u2019s version of false advertising, and prosecutors have many tools at their disposal to put an end to it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given this strong market pressure and the relative anonymity of Internet traffic, it isn\u2019t surprising that hiring a company or freelance writer to post fake customer reviews online is both cheap and easy<\/a>.\u00a0 As a result, one recent study<\/a> found that 20% of reviews on Yelp are fraudulent.
\nAccording to the Attorney General<\/a>, \u201c\u2019Astroturfing\u2019 is the 21st<\/sup> century\u2019s version of false advertising, and prosecutors have many tools at their disposal to put an end to it.\u201d\u00a0 Chief among the tools cited by the Attorney General are New York\u2019s prohibitions against fraud<\/a>, unfair and deceptive trade practices<\/a>, and false advertising<\/a>.\u00a0 But while these 20th<\/sup> century tools may provide a remedy for the most egregious forms of deceptive online advertising, even non-fraudulent reviews may be tainted by bias or conflicts of interest.\u00a0 For example, a Cornell study<\/a> found that 85% of the most prolific reviewers on Amazon receive free products from publishers, agents, and manufacturers.\u00a0 Although law enforcement operations like Operation Clean Turf are an excellent start, legislative action may be needed to fully protect consumers from misleading online customer reviews.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, September 26, 2013, by Ryan Niland Regulators in New York announced a settlement this week with more than a dozen companies it accuses of posting false and misleading customer reviews online.\u00a0 The settlement, reported to be worth over $350,000, is the culmination of a yearlong investigation by the New York Attorney General\u2019s Office called …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7575,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions\/7575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}