New York regulators announced agreements with 19 companies accused of posting fraudulent reviews of their services or those of their clients. The companies in question have all pledged to end the practice and will pay a collective fine of $350,000.Among the companies involved in the case are "reputation-enhancement firms". These businesses post fake reviews on behalf of their clients on such sites as Google, Yelp, and Yahoo. Investigators with the New York attorney general's office found people in Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Eastern Europe willing to create stellar reviews of businesses they had never used, all for just a buck per review.
