UK.gov watchdog growls at firms that pass off advertorials as real opinions The UK.gov's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is tackling undisclosed advertising in online articles and blogs through a new investigation into murky marketing practices in the world of sponsored content. A CMA’s investigation found two marketing companies, Starcom Mediavest and TAN Media, arranged for endorsements in …
Who cares, there is a more modern method.
Put reviews on site, and filter out any reviews under 5 stars.
Works a treat and dupes the punters every time. I got duped myself buying a new shed a couple of months back. As a result a shed (actually a workshop) costing 1000 quid required 200 quid worth of C16 wood to stabilize it and make it structurally sound. If I knew it, I would have framed and built it myself instead of buying a kit.
I will not get fooled by this one again. If there are only positive glowing reviews on a 3rd party site, well tough - the site is presumed to be marketeer lying fraudulent scum - so no purchase.
That is so Y2K it's almost quaint. The boat has long sailed on that point, and it currently missing at sea.
Trust is a very precious commodity, and the Internet is no place to waste it. Everyone out there is out to get you, and if you don't think that way, you will be had in some way or another.
don't be silly, the tax man has taken how long to go after the likes of amazon and ebay ref. the non-EU sellers (and they haven't got ANYWHERE with that either). Don't expect this useless gov body to do anything other than send letters threatening to send threatening letters. Not about such a trivial matter as (...) lying for money.
btw, how about argos publishing ONLY positive reviews (because they can)?
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this sort of thing has happened for years in print (newspapers) - and still does. Advertise enough and you get to write your own articles, or at least heavily influence them.
Something that this will not stop is suppression of stories, I remember many years ago talking to a local newspaper about a local shop who had rooked us, it never went anywhere - they were honest enough to admit that they did not want to risk their weekly adverts.
On a slightly more serious note, there are articles on El Reg every now and then which read as little more than cut'n'paste press releases and they are basically adverts with no obvious disclaimer.
Having dropped a tip once before to El Reg I've seen how a story can be created from very little information and bears little resemblance to the original (not incorrect or misleading in any way, just fleshed out, this isn't a complaint, it's a compliment) so authors who get paid and actually work for their money are more than capable of taking a press release and creating an article from it.
On a slightly more serious note, there are articles on El Reg every now and then which read as little more than cut'n'paste press releases and they are basically adverts with no obvious disclaimer.
Yup. And none of the "biting the hand" that made me come here in the first place (although some authors seem to confuse being critical with being biased). Not a good trend, but understandable in a world with more and more ad blockers.
Cahoots — Cahoots zeigt dir Verbindungen von Journalisten zu Vereinen, Organisationen und Unternehmen. *
Fact Checker — Accessing the World Wide Research Paper!
Illuminator — an add-on that clarifies corporate data and political sponsorship in html text.
* Cahoots shows the connections between journalists and associations, organisations and companies.
I'm sick of forever hearing adverts on the BBC.
I would agree, the Microsoft ones are *especially* annoying, but they are NOT advertorials, they are clearly marked as ads.
The whole issue with advertorials is that they abandon journalistic integrity for money, but not make that abundantly clear. The intended result is that you think the journalist gives an unbiased opinion where in reality they have simply been bought.
Personally, I think it may be worth starting to track people who lend their names to such activity because at the very least they ought to hand back their press card.
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