Cosmetic surgery co. gets slapped for fake online reviews

Fake reviews are everywhere. On Amazon, the author (or the author’s friends) may be leaving mysteriously glowing reviews for a book. On the iPhone, the developer and his buddies could be dropping five-star ratings on his own App Store offerings. Hell, even on Wikipedia, companies or employees thereof have been known to tweak their entries to be a little more positive and PR-like. Just because it’s common, though, doesn’t make the practice any less slimy, and one New York-based company is being punished for it.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced this week that cosmetic surgery company Lifestyle Lift has agreed to a settlement over its fake online reviews. As part of the settlement, the company has agreed to stop publishing anonymous reviews of its offerings (one would hope that this behavior would have stopped once they came under fire for it in the first place) and pay $300,000 in penalties to the state.

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