Eideard

In the brutal world of online commerce, where a competing product is just a click away, retailers need all the juice they can get to close a sale.

Some exalt themselves by anonymously posting their own laudatory reviews. Now there is an even simpler approach: offering a refund to customers in exchange for a write-up.

By the time VIP Deals ended its rebate on Amazon.com late last month, its leather case for the Kindle Fire was receiving the sort of acclaim once reserved for the likes of Kim Jong-il. Hundreds of reviewers proclaimed the case a marvel, a delight, exactly what they needed to achieve bliss. And definitely worth five stars…

By last week, 310 out of 335 reviews of VIP Deals’ Vipertek brand premium slim black leather case folio cover were five stars and nearly all the rest were four stars. The acclaim seemed authentic, barring the occasional indiscretion. “I would have done 4 stars instead of 5 without the deal,” one man bluntly wrote…

But three customers said in interviews that the offer was straightforward. Searching for a protective case for their new Kindle Fire, they came upon the VIP page selling a cover for under $10 plus shipping (the official list price was $59.99). When the package arrived it included a letter extending an invitation “to write a product review for the Amazon community.”

“In return for writing the review, we will refund your order so you will have received the product for free,” it said…

The merchant, which seems to have no Web site and uses a mailbox drop in suburban Los Angeles as a return address, did not respond to further requests for comment. As of last week, the company (as opposed to its products) had received 4,945 reviews on Amazon for a nearly perfect 4.9 rating out of five…

Under F.T.C. rules, when there is a connection between a merchant and someone promoting its product that affects the endorsement’s credibility, it must be fully disclosed. In one case, Legacy Learning Systems, which sells music instructional tapes, paid $250,000 last March to settle charges that it had hired affiliates to recommend the videos on Web sites.

Amazon, sent a copy of the VIP letter by The New York Times, said its guidelines prohibited compensation for customer reviews. A few days later, it deleted all the reviews for the case, which itself was listed as unavailable. Then it took down the product page itself.

RTFA. Some of it is useful, some humorous. Some of it is about as ignorant as you would expect from an American newspaper. Apparently, they expect one of the largest retailers in the world – amazon.com – to maintain a staff of reviewers to read and evaluate the personal reviews of thousands of products on a daily basis.

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has introduced a new “Do Not Track” bill to Congress that aims to hold companies accountable for collecting information on consumers after they’ve expressed a desire to opt out. Called the Do-Not-Track Online Act of 2011 [.pdf], the bill would create a “universal legal obligation” for companies to honor users’ opt-out requests on the Internet and mobile devices, and would give the Federal Trade Commission the power to take action against companies that don’t comply…

According to the bill, the FTC would be tasked with coming up with standards for companies to implement within a year of the bill being signed into law. After a user makes a request to stop being tracked, the companies in question would only be able to continue collecting certain information on customers if it’s absolutely necessary in order for the site or service to function. That information must still be anonymized or destroyed after its usefulness expires, and the user must still give explicit consent for the information to be used that way…

Privacy groups seem impressed with the bill, pointing out that the FTC has a good deal of flexibility in tailoring a persistent opt-out mechanism. “This legislation would give Americans the right and the right tools to browse the Internet without their every click being tracked,” Consumer Protection director Susan Grant said on a call to discuss the bill after it was introduced. Chris Calabrese from the ACLU agreed, describing the bill as “a crucial civil liberties protection for the twenty-first century…”

Of course, the final details for how companies are supposed to comply with the guidelines of Rockefeller’s bill have yet to be hammered out, but the privacy groups seemed optimistic that the FTC could handle the burden. After all, the FTC itself has been pushing for a Do Not Track mechanism online since 2010, and the Obama administration has voiced its support for some kind of “consumer privacy bill of rights.” Also, three of the four major browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari) either already support or will soon support Do Not Track opt-out headers originally developed by Mozilla, giving the FTC an easier launching point.

Geeks generally come in three flavors of concern: those perfectly happy with providing their own means of security; those who could care less; and the ever-popular paranoid look-under-your-mouse-pad-every-night for electronic listening devices. I believe the average non-geek consumer fits in the middle category.

None of which predicts the response to the bill if it passes. I would think even the unconcerned would opt for non-tracking if it was a simple process. Paranoids won’t believe it’s possible in the first place – and will probably skip opting out because it might point out their presence on the planet.

A public relations company and its owner have been cited for having staff post glowing reviews of game applications for companies it represents at the online iTunes store.

According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Reverb Communications and its owner Tracie Snitker engaged in deceptive advertising by having its employees pose as ordinary consumers when posting the reviews.

“Companies, including public relations firms involved in online marketing need to abide by long-held principles of truth in advertising,” said Mary Engle, director of the FTC’s advertising practices division.

The California-based Reverb Communications represents dozens of major video game companies and developers.

The FTC, however, claims Reverb did not disclose the reviews were written by its staff, nor that they were hired to promote the games and that they often received a percentage of the sales.

That information is relevant to consumers who were using the endorsements as a guide to whether or not to buy the games…

Under a proposed settlement order, Reverb will have to remove any previously posted endorsements that misrepresent the authors as ordinary consumers.

Sleaze ain’t any less relevant when it’s geeks and gamers indulging in the practice.

The sun never sets on that which is Intel
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

The Federal Trade Commission and Intel announced on Wednesday that they had agreed to settle charges of anticompetitive behavior that the agency claimed stifled competition in the market for computer processing and graphics chips.

The settlement prohibits Intel from the practice of paying customers to buy its computer chips exclusively or to refuse to buy chips from other manufacturers. It also prohibits Intel from redesigning its chips purely to harm a competitor. Intel also agreed not to retaliate against computer makers if they do business with non-Intel suppliers…

“This agreement provides a framework that will allow us to continue to compete and to provide our customers the best possible products at the best prices,” Mr. A. Douglas Melamed said. In agreeing to the settlement, Intel did not admit to any wrongdoing or that the accusations were true.

And they would stop doing all the things they won’t admit to doing.

Advanced Micro Devices, Intel’s main rival, settled its own antitrust claims against Intel in November with Intel agreeing to pay $1.25 billion…

That Intel didn’t have to admit to doing.

The various legal actions against Intel, based in Santa Clara, Calif., have brought to light numerous unflattering e-mails exchanged between the company’s top executives and customers.

In particular, communications between Intel and Dell have shown executives talking about rebates bestowed on Dell for its decision to abstain from A.M.D.’s products. In one such exchange, Paul S. Otellini, the chief executive at Intel, described Dell as “the best friend money can buy.”

One looks with pride upon the ethical standards of the captains of American industry – as our ship slides slowly beneath the waves of international commerce and history.

An internet firm linked to many of the internet’s criminal gangs has been shut down.

The US Federal Trade Commission said Belize-based 3FN aided gangs that ran botnets, carried out phishing attacks and traded in images of child abuse.

The servers and net hardware of 3FN have been seized and are due to be sold off as the firm is dismantled.

The operators of 3FN must also pay back $1.08 million they are reputed to have made by hosting criminal sites…

It was involved in distributing spyware, viruses and trojans, had a hand in many phishing schemes and helped gangs sell illegal images. It also acted as a discussion forum for many spammers.

In particular, said the FTC, the net firm worked with fraudsters who run botnets and helped them steal data by seeding hijacked computers with keyloggers. It maintained a library of more than 4500 malicious programs that could pilfer data from hijacked PCs.

In June last year, the FTC used an injunction to cut 3FN off from other hosting providers and sever its connections to the net.

Now the FTC has gone a step further and won a court order that will see the company stop trading and its hardware confiscated. The FBI has been ordered to carry out the shut down and seizure operation.

Overdue.