DailyTech sets up sting for crooked techsites.

[Babrbarossa]

DailyTech spent some serious effort routing out techsites that were willing to accept bribes. They found that about 25% of sites were willing to spin things for a little payola. 25% of canadian sites were Payola sites as well- really makes you wonder who they are

A three-month study of the online technology publication industry uncovers pay-to-review tactics, viral marketing and a few beacons of light

During the 1960s a new term was born into the music industry: Payola. A combination of the words "pay" and "Victrola," payola represented an increasingly large problem in the music industry: record companies paid radio stations to play and promote new records.

The immorality of paying radio station disc jockeys to air music did not become apparent until investigations by Federal Trade and Federal Communication Commission. Several deejays from the era were eventually found guilty of commercial bribery charges and deliberate legislation was eventually proposed, and sanctioned, that specifically banned the practice of payola in the U.S., with stiff consequences.

Here's an example of a couple of their bogussed requests, and the kinds of replies they got:

Ikram: "We'd be willing to pay a little more for ads if you can get us some articles on ******"
******: "Ok, I can help arrange that."
…
Ikram: "If we could spend a little more money [on ads] could you get us maybe a couple more articles?"
******: "Yeah, that's fine, that's fine."

Of 35 online computer-related publications, 23 (66 percent) refused editorial influence in exchange for advertising. Of remaining 12, seven publications (20 percent, Fig. 1) agreed to editorial service in exchange for advertising or cash.



Read the article at DailyTech

[SKYMTL]

And you would be surprised at which sites they aren't mentioning. Very surprised.

[Babrbarossa]

Well Tom's is not one of the sites that accepted the bribes contrary to what many people might expect. No sites older than nine years bit.

It's too bad that they couldn't spill the beans- there would be litigation up the ying-yang if they did though, undoubtedly.

[SKYMTL]

No, not Toms.

I am of the opinion that they should have also posted the sites that DEMAND advertising money if a company wants them to review their product.

[Deathspawner]

My site is one that they contacted, and yes, I refused the bribe. I also wish they would publish the list. I can see their reasons for not doing so, but would you give much credibility to a news program if they gave reports on restaurants that were not up to code, and then not mention the names?

Of course, that's a slightly different situation. But still.

[SKYMTL]

Which site is your 'Spawner?

[Babrbarossa]

Techgage Home a great canadian site!

[Babrbarossa]

All you need to do for a list of many of the culprits is to google "Supremetec"
do it soon!

supremetec review - Google Search=

[sswilson]

There's a very fine line here.

I believe the article states that "positive content" wasn't promised, only "more content".

Wouldn't it stand to reason that even without an implied agreement to spend more advertising dollars for more reviews, that a manufacturer who spent more money by offering more review units would tend to increase their coverage, and then also be likely to spend more money on advertising for a site that included more content on their products?

Could the question not be formed a little different.....

Company - If we were to send you a sample of every one of our products, would you be inclined to do reviews on them?

[SKYMTL]

Why Supremetech? They have been a mobo supplier for years to the industrial computing marketplace from what I can tell.