The next time you choose a hotel on the Internet after having read praiseworthy comments by clients, be careful. You may have fallen prey to advertising in disguise.

Internet blogs, forums and thematic chat rooms, once pulpits for ordinary Internet users to express their opinions, have been infiltrated by shrewd advertisers seeking to create a ‘buzz’ – good or bad - over a product.

The phenomenon, nicknamed ‘advertposting’, was strongly condemned by Michel-Yves Labbé, CEO of Directours, an online travel agency. In one of Directours’ newsletters, Labbé wrote: “If you want people to praise your products on the web, it’s very easy. Just contact an advertposting agency, and the cat’s in the bag. Advertposters use deliberate spelling mistakes and popular language, and often make connections between irrelevant subjects...(to make comments appear 'genuine').”

Thinking like an Internet consumer

The advertposting phenomenon is rapidly growing, but has not yet reached industrial levels. Anti-spam software like Akismet, coupled with high operating costs have, in part, hindered its development. User comments, to be credible, have to be written by living people, and not automatically generated by machines. Nevertherless, says a fervent blogger, “the day that spam and automatically generated comments start resembling genuine user posts, we will be in trouble.”

Websites like BuyBlogComments.com employ writers who, using pseudonyms, post comments that appear ‘authentic’. Contacted by FRANCE 24, the site’s founder Jon Warras claimed that his enterprise was dedicated to referencing on the web.

“Our clients are mainly web design agencies who are looking for cost-effective ways to increase the number of incoming links on their clients’ websites. This improves their referencing and their visibility on the web,” he said.

“The trick is to think like an Internet consumer who used one of your client’s services. And then you praise the service like in a blog,” explains Michel-Yves Labbé.

The finishing touch? “The realistic detail, for example, ‘My wife didn’t like the shampoo but the room was big and the food perfect’. Unbeatable!”

Anonymous criticism

False comments by Internet users can also be misused to anonymously put down a product or a person. An article in French investigative website Rue 89 provides a good example in the publishing industry. Un monde sans elfes (A World without Elves), the first novel by hitherto unknown author Jean-Louis Sevilla, elicited no less than 44 negative comments on an array of literary forums and online bookstores.

Bearing in mind that bestsellers released at the same time (the Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsen, for example) elicited some twenty-odd comments at the most, the number of reactions for first-time author Sevilla seemed odd.

After verification, the misgivings expressed by the author and his publishing house Les Equateurs were justified. The webmaster of the site critiqueslibres.com verified the IP addresses of four Internet users who commented on the novel. It turned out that the comments came from one person.

Jean-Louis Sevilla filed a lawsuit against the person concerned for moral prejudice, but the judicial process has not yet borne fruit.

Legal or not ?

Advertposting is a phenomenon that operates within the fringes of legality. The subject provoked the ire of several outraged bloggers on an Internet discussion thread.

“Legally, the practice may be qualified as misleading advertising, and can theoretically be the object of a lawsuit. But any legal action against companies involved is extremely risky, as one cannot prove a connection between an anonymous comment to someone who may have ordered it, “ said media law expert Bruno Anatrella to FRANCE 24.

Jon Warras sees nothing illegal in his business. “Our comments are diverse and varied. They are mere additions to existing blog conversations. I do not see this as being an ethical problem.”

Nevertheless, if one day these paid comments succeed in surpassing or equalling authentic ones, Internet users will have lost an important source of independent and credible information.