back to article New York nips facelift firm for astroturfing

A facelift firm is being slapped with a $300,000 fine by New York state for flooding the internet with fake positive reviews about itself. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said the case is believed to be the first in the US to punish so-called "astroturf" marketing. Under a settlement deal announced Tuesday, the cosmetic …

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  1. Daniel Pimley
    Alert

    Hello Everybody!

    I'm Doctor Nick!

    Never give a sucker an even break.

  2. lukewarmdog
    Paris Hilton

    LOL

    "negative internet postings were causing a significant loss of face"

    They have a procedure to fix that and it only takes an hour. At the end of that hour you will have the biggest smile on your face. That's the botox. Tell your friends.

  3. Craig 33

    @Daniel Pimley

    Hi Doctor Nick!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Just the cost of doing business

    This is just another Andrew Cuomo shake down. If he really cared about this illegal practice, he'd pull Lifestyle Lift's business license and threaten to go after its participating doctors. But that would entail actually doing real legal work. Can't do that!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Given that Lifestyle Lift spans 22 states

    and doesn't spread outside the US, shouldn't this be the sort of thing that's under the federal government's purview- or perhaps a 22-state Class Action Lawsuit to sort it out at once?

    I'm all for keeping an eye on what companies do and punishing underhand stuff, but let's face it- they've not been tapping tens of thousands of 'net connections or anything. So their punishment should be fairly severe- you want to prevent a re-occurance- but it should be proportional.

    And if all 22 states they operate in can bring similar lawsuits to the NY one, that's a pretty disproportionate amount of punishment for a few forum posts...

    If nothing else we should be discouraging local government from having too much to do with a global network...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    So?

    So is this illegal? It's certainly sleazy and unethical but I fail so see how publishing false reviews is against the law. What about the glowing testimonials you see for other products? Certainly many or most of them are bogus.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    I decided to write this comment because I wanted to share my story with others

    Since reading the Register my life has improved immeasurably. Before I read the register I was locked in my mother basement for 23 and a half hours a day and had to piss in a bucket. Now I have an outrageously over paid job and spend all my time drinking whilst driving fast cars and riding fast women. All this thanks to the register.

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