iPhone Developer Caught Paying For Positive Reviews

An iPhone developer has apparently been caught paying reviewers to leave positive feedback on iTunes, according to reporters at Wired.com. Adam Majewski, founder of The Casual Game Network, seems to have posted a listing on Amazon's Mechanical Turk, offering to pay $4 for each 5-star review left on iTunes for his newest iPhone application: SantaLive 3D. Adam also left additional instructions to add "five periods at the end of the review" so that he could later identify the source of the review.

So for this hit, all you have to do is download the application ($1.99) and then leave a 5 star review for the app in iTunes or through the app store. So you are making $2 profit in addition to getting the app. When you leave feedback, please leave five periods at the end of the review so I know it is a mturk worker. Then post your user name that you left the feedback under.

Currently, 8 out of the 38 reviews have "five periods" at the end as instructed by the Mechanical Turk listing, although 34 out of the 38 reviews listed received 5-star reviews. Even though this is the first reported case of "bribery in exchange of glowing reviews," this comes to us as no surprise as the overall rating can make or break the success of an application. Wired has since inquired the developer about the issue but he has neither confirmed or denied the accusation. [Source: Wired]

Related articles