(Image is in the Public Domain)

Found on Slashdot, this article explains how writing fake reviews about your own book or hotel to boost its rating will become illegal in the UK and perhaps all of Europe.

This practice is very similar to the fake blogs that marketers made in the United States recently.

I don't really know why they had to specifically illegalize this… Wasn't it already fraud?

Listen folks, have a little patience. If you’re going to get a refund, that’s great, but don’t under any circumstances give part of it away to a tax preparer. It’s just throwing away money.

Hey there fellow kids. Who wants a PSP fur Realz?

(Image used under: Fair Use doctrine)

In an amusing example of fake marketing, Sony created a fake website called "alliwantforchristmasisapsp" where two employees of their marketing firm pretended to be young, hip gamers who blogged about wanting a PSP.

According to the 1-up article on the debacle:

The tide began to turn against Sony's initiative after popular webcomic Penny-Arcade publicly outed the chicanery in a deliberate move to force a little transparency up ins. The Internet was quick to kick the

Marketing hiding as natural recommendations. Lovely.

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

The Washington Post reports that the FTC has begun to crack down on false word-of-mouth advertising. This is where a company pays people to tell friends about their products. From the article:

As the practice has taken hold over the past several years, however, some advocacy groups have questioned whether marketers are using such tactics to dupe consumers into believing they are getting unbiased information.

Ya' think?

Marketing to kids on a school bus is about as Orwelian as it gets.

(Image is used under the Pixabay license)

Obligation Inc. is documenting the exploits of BusRadio, a company that is producing programming intended for play on school busses. From the Obligation.org page on the issue:

These men realize that once on a school bus, children are a captive audience. Any captive audience can be exploited by forcing them to hear advertising. So Steven Shulman and Michael Yanoff developed BusRadio and were greatly aided by the venture capital moneyman Robert Davoli of Sigma Partners. As far as I can tell, this is the first time Sigma has chosen to financially back a very controversial company.

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

Reuters reports that the recent Microsoft Zune player (the competition portable MP3 player to the iPod) has a built in royalty fee that goes straight to Universal (one of the worlds largest music companies).

Slashdot's coverage quotes Universal Music's Doug Morris as saying the following:

These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it. So it's time to get paid for it.

Yeesh.