The most recent example comes from Yelp.com, a site popular in San Francisco for reviewing area restaurants. The East Bay Express published a damning article citing nine local eatery owners and a few anonymous Yelp employees and contractors who said Yelp ad sales reps were offering to remove bad reviews and promote good ones in exchange for $300 per month ad campaigns.

Yelp has vehemently denied the allegations and points to several instances where owners tried to get negative reviews removed and couldn’t. Both sides of the story have a vested interest in a particular version of the story. Restaurateurs with bad reviews can point to that article and discredit Yelp. Yelp can say that’s exactly what they’re trying to do.

Nonetheless, one pizzeria has turned Yelp reviews into an opportunity to mock the site. Delfina Pizzeria has made t-shirts out of them for employees to wear, one of which says “This place sucks,” and another refers to grease and pig fat. One imagines loyal customers admire that kind of spunk.

But it points to the broader issue. How much can we trust customer reviews? The whole idea was transparency and honesty and conversations, but they seem perfect for manipulation for both sides. When you go to BabiesRus, for example, how does one know that glowing reviews aren’t stacked by the manufacturer and/or bad reviews aren’t rung in by competitors?

You wouldn’t know, unless you’re really confident in your BS sniffers.

It’s times like those you rely on old-world standbys like Consumer Reports and independent, professional reviewers.    
 

It used to be there were official critics and official criticisms were published in print, read by subset of subscribers to a specific publication. Now, critics are pretty much everywhere and can publish anywhere, any time.

And that means companies better be at their best at all times. If not, the least of what gets published is humorous complaints about food served at your airline. At least the critic who wrote this letter to Sir Richard Branson acknowledged several times how much he or she loved Branson’s Virgin brand.

Here’s just a small excerpt of the Virgin Airlines food review published in the Telegraph:

It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

 

Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

Needless to say—well, hopefully needless to say—Branson or somebody at Virgin should be looking into food quality post haste.

A Belkin employee was recently busted offering payment for positive reviews of a Belkin network router—whether or not the reviewer had even seen one—and asking reviewers to vote down negative comments. This offer was, using some swift stategery, posted on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website.

Outrage, backlash, sneers and jeers ensued, forcing Belkin president Mark Reynoso to issue a press release, part of which reads as follows:

Belkin has always held itself to the highest standards of corporate ethics and its employees to the highest standards of personal integrity. Similarly, we support our online user community in discussion and reviews of our products, whether the commentary is good or bad. So, it was with great surprise and dismay when we discovered that one of our employees may have posted a number of queries on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website inviting users to post positive reviews of Belkin products in exchange for payment. 

 

Belkin does not participate in, nor does it endorse, unethical practices like this.

Though Reynoso insisted this was an isolated incident, he likely wasn’t privy to leaks and investigations that would later appear. The Daily Background, which broke the original story, followed up and discovered a second Belkin employee—this time Belkin’s National Account Manager—at the helm of the Astroturfing review-scamming as far back as 2006.

In addition to that, Gizmodo piled on with an anonymous employee tipster who offered these damning details about the inner workings at Belkin:

While never mentioned in an "official" policy, for years it has been pressed upon ALL Belkin employees to do whatever is needed to get good product reviews and good press. Everything from sending blog writers a device with custom firmware that hides known bugs yet claiming it to be official release firmware, faking hardware logo certifications (specifically Apple and MSFT), releasing blatantly inaccurate data from test results making our devices look superior to others, to placing "tailored" reviews of our products into places visible to consumers (as reported Amazon, etc), as well as writing poor reviews of competitors products. . .

 We have paid magazines for positive reviews, made custom devices or fixtures for use at trade shows to ensure quality demos. One such example would be a fixture that runs hidden cable to a TV or audio receiver, yet claiming the broadcast is coming from a wireless transmitter, or through a USB hub.

This has been going on for years.

 This is starting to sound like a case for the feds. And it’s also a real blow to the trust and transparency needed for the user-generated Web 2.0 concept to truly succeed.
 

A Belkin employee was recently busted offering payment for positive reviews of a Belkin network router—whether or not the reviewer had even seen one—and asking reviewers to vote down negative comments. This offer was, using some swift stategery, posted on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website.

Outrage, backlash, sneers and jeers ensued, forcing Belkin president Mark Reynoso to issue a press release, part of which reads as follows:

Belkin has always held itself to the highest standards of corporate ethics and its employees to the highest standards of personal integrity. Similarly, we support our online user community in discussion and reviews of our products, whether the commentary is good or bad. So, it was with great surprise and dismay when we discovered that one of our employees may have posted a number of queries on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website inviting users to post positive reviews of Belkin products in exchange for payment. 

 

Belkin does not participate in, nor does it endorse, unethical practices like this.

Though Reynoso insisted this was an isolated incident, he likely wasn’t privy to leaks and investigations that would later appear. The Daily Background, which broke the original story, followed up and discovered a second Belkin employee—this time Belkin’s National Account Manager—at the helm of the Astroturfing review-scamming as far back as 2006.

In addition to that, Gizmodo piled on with an anonymous employee tipster who offered these damning details about the inner workings at Belkin:

While never mentioned in an "official" policy, for years it has been pressed upon ALL Belkin employees to do whatever is needed to get good product reviews and good press. Everything from sending blog writers a device with custom firmware that hides known bugs yet claiming it to be official release firmware, faking hardware logo certifications (specifically Apple and MSFT), releasing blatantly inaccurate data from test results making our devices look superior to others, to placing "tailored" reviews of our products into places visible to consumers (as reported Amazon, etc), as well as writing poor reviews of competitors products. . .

 We have paid magazines for positive reviews, made custom devices or fixtures for use at trade shows to ensure quality demos. One such example would be a fixture that runs hidden cable to a TV or audio receiver, yet claiming the broadcast is coming from a wireless transmitter, or through a USB hub.

This has been going on for years.

 This is starting to sound like a case for the feds. And it’s also a real blow to the trust and transparency needed for the user-generated Web 2.0 concept to truly succeed.
 

A Belkin employee was recently busted offering payment for positive reviews of a Belkin network router—whether or not the reviewer had even seen one—and asking reviewers to vote down negative comments. This offer was, using some swift stategery, posted on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website.

Outrage, backlash, sneers and jeers ensued, forcing Belkin president Mark Reynoso to issue a press release, part of which reads as follows:

Belkin has always held itself to the highest standards of corporate ethics and its employees to the highest standards of personal integrity. Similarly, we support our online user community in discussion and reviews of our products, whether the commentary is good or bad. So, it was with great surprise and dismay when we discovered that one of our employees may have posted a number of queries on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website inviting users to post positive reviews of Belkin products in exchange for payment. 

 

Belkin does not participate in, nor does it endorse, unethical practices like this.

Though Reynoso insisted this was an isolated incident, he likely wasn’t privy to leaks and investigations that would later appear. The Daily Background, which broke the original story, followed up and discovered a second Belkin employee—this time Belkin’s National Account Manager—at the helm of the Astroturfing review-scamming as far back as 2006.

In addition to that, Gizmodo piled on with an anonymous employee tipster who offered these damning details about the inner workings at Belkin:

While never mentioned in an "official" policy, for years it has been pressed upon ALL Belkin employees to do whatever is needed to get good product reviews and good press. Everything from sending blog writers a device with custom firmware that hides known bugs yet claiming it to be official release firmware, faking hardware logo certifications (specifically Apple and MSFT), releasing blatantly inaccurate data from test results making our devices look superior to others, to placing "tailored" reviews of our products into places visible to consumers (as reported Amazon, etc), as well as writing poor reviews of competitors products. . .

 We have paid magazines for positive reviews, made custom devices or fixtures for use at trade shows to ensure quality demos. One such example would be a fixture that runs hidden cable to a TV or audio receiver, yet claiming the broadcast is coming from a wireless transmitter, or through a USB hub.

This has been going on for years.

 This is starting to sound like a case for the feds. And it’s also a real blow to the trust and transparency needed for the user-generated Web 2.0 concept to truly succeed.
 

A Belkin employee was recently busted offering payment for positive reviews of a Belkin network router—whether or not the reviewer had even seen one—and asking reviewers to vote down negative comments. This offer was, using some swift stategery, posted on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website.

Outrage, backlash, sneers and jeers ensued, forcing Belkin president Mark Reynoso to issue a press release, part of which reads as follows:

Belkin has always held itself to the highest standards of corporate ethics and its employees to the highest standards of personal integrity. Similarly, we support our online user community in discussion and reviews of our products, whether the commentary is good or bad. So, it was with great surprise and dismay when we discovered that one of our employees may have posted a number of queries on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website inviting users to post positive reviews of Belkin products in exchange for payment. 

 

Belkin does not participate in, nor does it endorse, unethical practices like this.

Though Reynoso insisted this was an isolated incident, he likely wasn’t privy to leaks and investigations that would later appear. The Daily Background, which broke the original story, followed up and discovered a second Belkin employee—this time Belkin’s National Account Manager—at the helm of the Astroturfing review-scamming as far back as 2006.

In addition to that, Gizmodo piled on with an anonymous employee tipster who offered these damning details about the inner workings at Belkin:

While never mentioned in an "official" policy, for years it has been pressed upon ALL Belkin employees to do whatever is needed to get good product reviews and good press. Everything from sending blog writers a device with custom firmware that hides known bugs yet claiming it to be official release firmware, faking hardware logo certifications (specifically Apple and MSFT), releasing blatantly inaccurate data from test results making our devices look superior to others, to placing "tailored" reviews of our products into places visible to consumers (as reported Amazon, etc), as well as writing poor reviews of competitors products. . .

 We have paid magazines for positive reviews, made custom devices or fixtures for use at trade shows to ensure quality demos. One such example would be a fixture that runs hidden cable to a TV or audio receiver, yet claiming the broadcast is coming from a wireless transmitter, or through a USB hub.

This has been going on for years.

 This is starting to sound like a case for the feds. And it’s also a real blow to the trust and transparency needed for the user-generated Web 2.0 concept to truly succeed.