Apple has a good thing going with the App Store, the place for iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad applications. Various financial estimates place Apple’s annual profit at more than $ 400 million, and some consider that estimate to be conservative. appear to be enough money for Steve Jobs. He still refuses to work in the App store making it so things are a bit more honest. Makers spend a ton of time making their products look better with fake reviews so they’ll sell more. This strategy is called Astroturf marketing and appears often. This makes it much more difficult to buy applications while knowing which ones are worth it. The New York Times makes a reports on this. Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission is going to step in and help.
Astrosurf case needs to be settled by Reverb Communications says FTC
California marketing company Reverb Communications and key executive Tracie Snitker have agreed to remove all fake app store reviews from iTunes. From November 2008 to May 2009, Reverb had its employees writing positive reviews for its clients applications which is what makes it be charged with deceptive advertising. In turn, Astroturf reviewers were paid for their reviews. Reverb had about 60 clients in game production during that time. These include Digital Leisure, Harmonix and MTV Games as part of it. The FTC settlement forbids Reverb and Snitker from “making comparable endorsements of any product or service without disclosing any relevant connections,” as outlined by the Times.
Snitker denies Reverb did anything illegal
Evidently, Snitker thought Reverb just wanted to get over the legal fight and pay the fees but did nothing wrong. She said this following the FTC and Reverb came to an agreement. The FTC was not yet enforcing the new rules that stated bloggers can’t participate in product endorsement for money, which also applied to the App Store Reviews.
Jonathan Zittrain had something to say on this. He thinks online advertising will be real now. “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.’”
Additional reading
NY Times
nytimes.com/2010/08/27/technology/27ftc.html?_r=5
