{"id":9404,"date":"2011-03-02T12:58:52","date_gmt":"2011-03-02T16:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=9404"},"modified":"2011-03-25T13:12:46","modified_gmt":"2011-03-25T17:12:46","slug":"fake-reviews-starting-to-get-mainstream-media-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/02\/fake-reviews-starting-to-get-mainstream-media-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"Fake Reviews Starting to Get Mainstream Media Attention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The latter part of this otherwise <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/21134540\/vp\/41755033%2341755033#41755033 \">lame &#8216;expose&#8217;<\/a> about deceptive hotel marketing practices from NBC&#8217;s 2\/24 Today show highlights  the issue of fake reviews.<\/p>\n<p><object id=\"msnbc71d0c7\" classid=\"clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000\" width=\"420\" height=\"245\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=10,0,0,0\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/32545640\" \/><param name=\"FlashVars\" value=\"launch=41755033^218339^422990&amp;width=420&amp;height=245\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"420\" height=\"245\" src=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/32545640\" pluginspage=\"http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/shockwave\/download\/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash\" wmode=\"transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" flashvars=\"launch=41755033^218339^422990&amp;width=420&amp;height=245\" name=\"msnbc71d0c7\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 11px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #999; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 420px;\">Visit msnbc.com for <a style=\"text-decoration: none !important; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999 !important; font-weight: normal !important; height: 13px; color: #5799db !important;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\">breaking news<\/a>, <a style=\"text-decoration: none !important; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999 !important; font-weight: normal !important; height: 13px; color: #5799db !important;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032507\">world news<\/a>, and <a style=\"text-decoration: none !important; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999 !important; font-weight: normal !important; height: 13px; color: #5799db !important;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032072\">news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Certainly the issue of fake reviews is both more pervasive and more common than the report indicates. Our industry has been <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/11\/google-maps-and-reviews-a-readers-perspective\/\">reporting<\/a> on cases of fake reviews for a long while.<\/p>\n<p>While there has been a <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/15\/plastic-surgery-co-settles-with-nys-over-false-reviews\/\">few<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/10\/review-spam-under-attack-by-the-ftc\/\">cases<\/a> of state and national government enforcement (contrary to the reporting on NBC), it has been extremely light.<\/p>\n<p>Services <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/30\/review-services-do-positive-only-reviews-have-a-place\/\">promoting<\/a> less than ethical review practices have sprung up. Even in the hinterlands, <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/23\/the-review-economy-what-is-a-positive-review-worth-3-22\/\">fake, purchased reviews<\/a> are showing on Google with the ability to <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/23\/the-review-economy-what-is-a-positive-review-worth-3-22\">purchase reviews<\/a> available through a number of channels.<\/p>\n<p>While Google, Yelp and Tripadvisor have implemented some measures to <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/10\/google-places-selective-reviews-now-being-removed\/\">limit<\/a> fake reviews, the efforts have only been partially successful. Given the increasing media coverage of the issue, it seems probable that the FTC and State&#8217;s Attorney Generals are likely to pursue more aggressive enforcement going forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The latter part of this otherwise lame &#8216;expose&#8217; about deceptive hotel marketing practices from NBC&#8217;s 2\/24 Today show highlights the issue of fake reviews. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Certainly the issue of fake reviews is both more pervasive and more common than the report indicates. Our industry &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9404"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9415,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9404\/revisions\/9415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}