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Appalbarry [soylentnews.org] writes:

It was reported today [thestar.com] that Bell Canada, one of the three companies that make up our 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, [www.cbc.ca] the fraudulent reviews were reported by Scott Stratten, president of UnMarketing, [unmarketing.com] 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.

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