I wish they'd extend that to requiring journalists to disclose which PR agent convinced them to write a submarine for their company.

If the news agency accepted compensation in return for writing the piece, then they are required to disclose it. Relevant FTC guidance:

> A basic truth-in-advertising principle is that it’s deceptive to mislead consumers about the commercial nature of content. Advertisements or promotional messages are deceptive if they convey to consumers expressly or by implication that they’re independent, impartial, or from a source other than the sponsoring advertiser – in other words, that they’re something other than ads. (...) As the FTC Endorsement Guides establish, advertisers’ use of third-party endorsements may be deceptive if there is an undisclosed material connection between the advertiser and the endorser – one that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/nat...

https://www.ftc.gov/public-statements/2015/12/commission-enf...

These rules are enforced. For example, Machinima recently settled with the FTC over the fact that Machinima paid endorsers to include footage of the Xbox in reviews and commentary.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/17/11254260/machina-settles-f...

I have NEVER seen at attributed article in 30 years of reading such things. Typically you are not paid to write an article, you are encouraged to write an article featuring that company, and they agreed to do advertising in your magazine or on your site.

I don't (just) care where they got material compensation. I care whether they're doing this because of influence from one of the subjects of the story -- e.g. if the PR dude wrote the story and the journalist just forwarded it on.

What would incentivize me to forward on such a review? Material compensation just happen somewhere... No one posts great reviews about a product because they were asked nicely. Unsolicited? That's fine; I consider that a review based on the merit of the product. Solicited? The first question is, "what's in it for me?"

This FTC regulation might have more teeth if the definition of compensation included, for example, influencing the hiring or employment of a relative related to the subject of the post.

Or "writing the freaking article for you".

There are probably indirect ways to "pay" the advertiser

I'm not seeing any contact info for you in your profile, or a means to PM you. You can ping me via email with my first name at jonstokes.com. I'm in Austin, too, so can meet up.

Those reviews are still averaged into the star rating, which is all that most people look at

I don't know of any studies (do you?). Do people only look at the star rating? We have done some statistics and found that star rating only tells a small part of the story. Anyone with a background in statistics knows this, though.

My personal strategy is to ignore all the good reviews. I already know why I'm interested in something. I want to know what other people think sucks about that something, and then I decide whether it is something that would bother me.

People are naturally more vocal about complaints, and if they have a serious gripe then they are far more likely to speak up in a negative review.

If they like something, that is basically meeting expectations and there is no urgency to seek resolution. So I expect a larger percentage of positive reviews to be shills, since nobody else will feel much need to post anything.

But if the negative reviews are things I don't care about (or are obvious douche reviews) that tells me a lot.

This is my base strategy as well but thinking it through it mostly means that negative smear reviews of competitors should be more "valuable" than fake positive reviews of the companies own products.

If you guys don't mind a third person in that conversation, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this issue lately and it would be enlightening to hear from others who have probably been thinking about it for much longer :) My email is my profile and I always reply. Also located in SF if anyone wants to discuss over food/drinks.

Always interested in more folks joining this conversation. It's what I do full time. I think my contact info is in my profile. I'm located in Austin so I'd have to fly out for drinks. ;)

> the largest ratings and reviews company worldwide

So, Amazon? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by this?

Amazon is not strictly a ratings and reviews company. I don't know in total how many reviews they have.

Do those regulations have any teeth? Because it seems like it would be very hard to enforce.

If the FTC contacts you directly, expect your corporate lawyers to ask you to prioritize resolution over pretty much anything else.

You can file many kinds of complaints on the FTC website, but AFAIK, this is not one of them. It's a shame—I've encountered several websites, both as a consumer and as a startup founder, of pay-for-play reviews. Hopefully they'll create a category so that people can file complaints about this.