FTC cracking down on Astroturfing in Apple App Store

Apple was doing really great with the iPhone Touch, iPhone and iPad applications. These are available at the Apple App Store. Some think that Apple’s annual profit is around $ 400 million at the very least. Despite the fact that Apple is making a ton of money, Steve jobs hasn’t done anything to help make the App Store more honest in its dealings. 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 New York Times makes a reports on this. Evidently, the Federal Trade Commission is going to step in and help. Source for this article – FTC cracking down on Astroturfing in Apple App Store by Personal Money Store.

Astroturfing case needs to be settled, says FTC, by Reverb Communications

California marketing company Reverb Communications and key executive Tracie Snitker have agreed to remove all fake app store reviews from iTunes. Deceptive advertising is what Reverb is being charged for. This is because from November 2008 to May 2009, Reverb had its employees writing reviews for clients that were positive. These reviews were what caused more Astroturf reviewers to pay for the applications. The 60 game production clients of Reverb during that period involved noted software companies Digital Leisure, Harmonix and MTV Games. The FTC settlement forbids Reverb and Snitker from “making comparable endorsements of any product or service without disclosing any relevant connections,” according to the Times.

Reverb was legal in what it did says Snitker

Apparently, Snitker thought Reverb just wanted to get over the legal fight and pay the fees but did nothing wrong. She said this after the FTC and Reverb came to an agreement. The App Store Reviews were under the exact same ruling as the FTC new rules the FTC was not yet enforcing. These rules say that bloggers can’t participate in product endorsement for pay.

Jonathan Zittrain had something to say on this. He thinks online advertising can 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.’”

Find more details on this subject

NY Times

nytimes.com/2010/08/27/technology/27ftc.html?_r=5