Apparently, some business development guy named Michael Bayard over at Belkin got caught offering people in India 65 cents to write a positive review of products on Amazon and Newegg. Belkin issued the following statement after word got out:
Belkin has always held itself to the highest standards of corporate ethics and its employees to the highest standards of personal integrity. Similarly, we support our online user community in discussion and reviews of our products, whether the commentary is good or bad. So, it was with great surprise and dismay when we discovered that one of our employees may have posted a number of queries on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website inviting users to post positive reviews of Belkin products in exchange for payment.
Belkin does not participate in, nor does it endorse, unethical practices like this. We know that people look to online user reviews for unbiased opinions from fellow users and instances like this challenge the implicit trust that is placed in this interaction. We regard our responsibility to our user community as sacred, and we are extremely sorry that this happened.
Call me a skeptic, but I have a hard time believing that some junior level manager would on his own personally fund this little venture, I mean how is he profiting from it? I never liked Belkin routers anyway, I use linksys.
Anyway, in the interest of holding people accountable, and for my own amusement, a thumbnail of his linkedin profile is on the top of this post. Feel free to click on it.
1 comment:
I couldn't find the "mark as douchebag" button on LinkedIn
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