PR Firm Faked iTunes Reviews

Posted Aug 31, 2010 at 6:59AM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: News Tags: apple, ios, news

The FTC withheld the names of the games that Reverb was reviewing, as well as the identities of the clients for whom they were posting reviews. They also stopped short of court, allowing Reverb to settle. According to the New York Times, the PR firm "agreed to remove all of the iTunes reviews that appeared to have been written by ordinary people but were actually written by employees of the company." Reverb does not have to pay a fine, though the firm does have to make its interests clear in any future product endorsements.

Stacey Ferguson, a lawyer in the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said of the settlement "We hope that this case will show advertisers that they have to be transparent in their practices and help guide other ad agencies." Reverb, on the other hand, posed the settlement in a different light, stating "Rather than continuing to spend time and money arguing, and laying off employees to fight what we believed was a frivolous matter, we settled this case and ended the discussion."

The FTC’s actions against Reverb are the result of new guidelines published in October of 2009, which are the first of their kind since 1980. Greeted with skepticism and dismay by many bloggers, it was feared that the new rules would enable the FTC to seek sanctions against any writer who reviewed products they received for free, a common practice in many industries.

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PR Firm Faked iTunes Reviews

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