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from the caught-out dept.
It was reported today that Bell Canada, one of the three companies that make up our [Canadian] telecommunications oligopoly, has been fined $1.25 million for encouraging its employees "to plant glowing reviews of Bell apps for mobile devices."
The (Canadian) Competition Bureau said certain Bell employees in November 2014 posted positive reviews and ratings of the new version of the free MyBell Mobile app and Virgin My Account app on the iTunes App Store and the Google Play Store, without disclosing that they work for Bell.
Bell acknowledged at the time that "overzealous" employees talked up the product, but said the conduct is not consistent with company policy.
As part of a consent agreement with the Competition Bureau, Montreal-based Bell has agreed to refrain from directing or incentivizing its staff or contractors to rate, rank or review apps in app stores.
According to CBC News, the fraudulent reviews were reported by Scott Stratten, president of UnMarketing, a company that writes about unethical marketing tactics.
Stratten noticed something was amiss when reading reviews for the latest version of the MyBell Mobile app after it launched last November. He thought some of the language used was suspicious. For example, S Saade wrote: "Excellent new app. Looking forward to updates with residential services."
"Just words that you do not say in real life," Stratten said at the time.
He began cross-checking reviewers' user names with LinkedIn profiles where people list their work status. He discovered many of the positive reviewers were actually Bell employees.
I for one am reassured by this story, and am glad that fraudulent app ratings are an incredibly rare thing.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @10:57AM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by darkfeline on Friday October 16 2015, @11:38AM
Believe it or not, marketing is supposed to be a good thing. The idea is to reach out to people who would benefit from what your company offers but would otherwise not have found your company, in order to build mutually beneficial relationships.
Of course, that tends to get mangled during the translation to MBA-speak.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @11:55AM
So marketing is like patent. In theory .... Wait, wait. Marketing is like violence. If it's not working...
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday October 16 2015, @04:18PM
Here's the problem, in a nutshell: Marketing helps those who want what you are selling find you. But Marketing also demands that those who have no interest at all in what you are selling pay attention to you.
For example, you probably get lots and lots of junk mail every day with all sorts of coupons. It probably really annoys you. But for elderly folks with absolutely nothing else to do, limited income, and limited sources of information (many do not have smartphones or even computers in their home), this information is extremely useful because they can take the time to go through it and find good deals on the stuff they want.
This is all made worse by the fact that marketing professionals really don't care who they annoy, so long as they find the new potential customers they are actually looking for, because the way their performance is measured is whether sales go up. The negative costs of having to throw out their junk mail or hide their ads online or skip TV commercials are Somebody Else's Problem.
The only exceptions to that rule would be:
1. Non-schlocky SEO targeted at exactly what you're selling.
2. Reasonably targeted online ads (e.g. focusing on the keywords "lawn ornaments" if you sell lawn ornaments)
3. Word of mouth without any kind of encouragement from the seller (so the friend who's pitching the company doesn't pitch to people who aren't asking about it).
Alcohol makes the world go round ... and round and round.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @12:16AM
2. Reasonably targeted online ads (e.g. focusing on the keywords "lawn ornaments" if you sell lawn ornaments).
Dwarves are people too. It's illegal to sell them you heightist bastard.
(Score: 2) by unzombied on Friday October 16 2015, @07:31PM
I don't believe it. The original term was "propaganda," which came to have negative connotations. A propaganda expert [wikipedia.org], with help from a psychiatric expert, renamed it "Public Relations." Now also falling out of favor somewhat, thus becoming "marketing."
If you look at nearly any mainstream advertisement, the content does not create an informed consumer. Instead it confuses and influences to buy and believe. This "mutually beneficial relationships" means fooling people into buying some ordinary or expensive or marginally useful product from a particular brand (e.g. emotional manipulations discovered through focus groups). It is not a "good thing" according to the usual definition. It is profitable, the MBA's definition of "good."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @01:39PM
Whatever... Bell Canada has been working Gloved Hand in Fist with the Canadian government for at least 30 years passing every recorded telephone call and piece of data to the police without warrants like its business as usual so they can have their fishing expeditions. The Judges don't care so why should you. This article ranks slightly above Casually Annoyed in the grand scheme of things.