TWIT had a story a few weeks ago about bloggers who were paid or given some compensation for good ink. They even mentioned forums where some posts were basically press releases.
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed a lot of fake reviews on the Internet and in Download.com lately? I was just checking out Firewalls at Download.com and came across a software download that has only been available since January of this year and yet it has over 200 five-star reviews, almost all of them seem professionally done and a little hard to believe. I've also noticed this at Epinions.com -- one reviewer there had reviewed literally thousands of products, more than I would believe one person could actually ever try, and they were all glowingly positive and extremely professional. It leads me to believe that companies are beginning to hire people to do damage control and bring up their ratings. Isn't that illegal? I've started to learn how to recognize them and avoid the products -- maybe sites that review products should allow a person a link to view just the negative ones so they can filter out all the false positives?

Chowhound
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GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
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