Belkin admits to soliciting for fake reviews, issues apology

In a PR disaster of epic proportions, networking and peripheral manufacturer Belkin has admitted that an employee actively solicited for reviews that were biased in favor of the company's products. The employee, a business development representative apparently submitted queries on Amazon's Mechanical Turk service asking for users to write positive reviews of Belkin products at 65 cents per pop. 

The original postings were already taken down by now, of course, though I thought you would be interested to read some of the finer points from the original post, which I list below:

• [Title] Write a positive 5/5 review for product on website
• Always give a 100% rating (as high as possible)
• Write as if you own the product and are using it
• Mark any other negative reviews as "not helpful" once you post yours

Under the "Instructions" section, the employee helpfully suggests that the potential reviewer "read through the product's features and write a positive review... to the best of your ability."

While one can be more or less certain that some less-than-ethical companies are doing this, Belkin must be one of the first to be exposed in such a manner. News of this was first reported on The Daily Background website last Friday, which Belkin was quick to respond to. In a letter posted on Belkin's website on Sunday, Belkin President Mark Reynoso wrote: "We regard our responsibility to our user community as sacred, and we are extremely sorry that this happened."

Shenanigans such as this will certainly continue even as more users than ever turn to the Internet for their buying decisions. Will honesty and integrity triumph; or be relegated to the dustbins labeled "idealistic." I certainly hope it will be the former.

You can check out this screenshot capture showing one of the postings.

For more on this story:
- check out this article from The Daily Background
- check out this article from CNET News