PR firms are obviously meant to promote businesses or products for their clients. That is their job and most of them do it well. However, is it right and proper for a PR firm to throw ethics out of the window in an effort to promote something for their clients?

The Apple App Store is the place where those lucky iPhone and iPod Touch owners go to get the apps which make the product they own as good as it is. There are thousands of apps listed on the App Store, some free and some at a cost. But with so many to choose from, it must be hard for developers to get a particular app noticed.

One of the ways in which apps are ranked is by reviews, with people who own the app giving it a rating out of 5. A high number of positive 5-star reviews is obviously going to do wonders in terms of pushing the app up the rankings and persuading people to put their hands in their pockets and buy it.

The problem is knowing whether we can trust the app reviews. According to MobileCrunch we probably can’t take these reviews on face value. The site claims that at least one PR firm is gaming the review system in order to push its clients apps.

MobileCrunch alleges that Reverb Communications, a company which represents dozens of games developers, is gaming the system by having interns write positive reviews for the apps sold by its clients.

The site received a document from a tipster which allegedly spells out the kind of services Reverb will provide for its clients, which includes “internal user reviews”. What’s more, MobileCrunch found that certain reviewers have reviewed apps by a number of different companies, all of which are clients of Reverb.

Although it’s not conclusive proof of the App Store being gamed, it does suggest as much. Of course, even if Reverb is partaking in this kind of activity, it’s more unethical than illegal or disallowed. In fact, some would applaud Reverb for doing a good job for their clients by gaming the system in this way. If that is what is actually happening.

This wouldn’t be the first time something such as this has happened. In January in emerged that Belkin was paying people to write positive reviews of its products on Amazon. However, I’m guessing Apple will be less than happy to see this kind of thing going on. It maybe time to change its policies to make gaming the system a little more difficult.

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Entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 1:57 am under Apple, Internet, Opinion, Retail.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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