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Canada: Bell gets slapped for fake App Store reviews

By  |  October 15, 2015

Bell Canada has been handed down a $1.25 million CAD ($970,719) fine by Canada’s competition bureau after its employees posted fake reviews of Bell apps.

According to the regulator, the carrier “encouraged” staff members to post glowing testimonials of the MyBell Mobile and Virgin My Account apps on the App Store and Google Play. Unfortunately, these overenthusiastic write-ups neglected to mention that they were written by people on Bell’s dollar.

The dodgy behavior was initially exposed by Scott Stratten, who was already well aware of the apps’ poor standing on iTunes. Suddenly, however, the rating skyrocketed thanks to a series of five-star reviews, and Stratten smelled a rat. After some digging on LinkedIn, he uncovered that the most praiseworthy mentions were all directors, marketing managers and other people paid by Bell Canada.

Full content: Rapid News Network

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