Fake blogs and Googling guests

A few bits and pieces from the papers:

  • I hadn’t spotted this before, but under new trading standards legislation due this year firms who pretend to be punters online – by writing fake blogs, or posting “user reviews” of their own products or services – face prosecution. Apparently even author reviews on Amazon will be covered. Surely firms will just hire third parties such as street teams to do it for them?
  • We know some firms Google you when you apply for jobs, but apparently they’re Googling you to provide better service too: the Observer says that one US hotel Googles visitors so for example if you blog about how much you love mornings, the hotel will give you a room that benefits from the sunrise. No idea how widespread this practice is, but just in case: God, I love Aston Martins. Aren’t they the best cars in the world, ever? Man, how cool would it be if Aston Martin loaned me a Vantage and all I had to do was blog about it? It’d be really cool!

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0 responses to “Fake blogs and Googling guests”

  1. Ben

    I heard you really like mornings.. early mornings, infact you’d love your postman to knock on the door every morning – just so you could wish him a good day…

    The Googling Guest thing does unsettle me a little, I don’t *want* people sniffing around who I am, far less when I’m checking into a hotel (!)

    But seriously, this is all well and good – but from googling myself there’s a professional American Footballer who shares my name.

    Would that mean I’d get cheerleaders at the hotel?

  2. Gary

    You never know your luck.

  3. This could explain a lot about my recent hotel experiences.

  4. Gary

    Heh.