32
Anakata
4y

My company is asking me to create a new gmail account everyday and write a positive review with 5 stars for their iOS app on App Store. Is that even legal? Should I say no? I’m a fucking engineer, not a click-farm worker.

Comments
  • 18
    Make it the passive aggressive way: the accounts get addresses like account001, account002,...; the names are the same on the appleid, same passwords and you do it from your companys internet access. If you can use autohotkey to automate it, use it.
    If you do that at the same time each day the accounts get suspended because the fraud detection will get active.
  • 9
    Fuck, you might as Well write a bot fot that.
    Fucking tedious.
  • 2
    I'm just going to leave this here....
    https://amazon.com.au/Automate-Bori...

    @M1sf3t 👀you deleted everything?
  • 7
    No, this is not legal (depending on the jurisdiction system of course).
    Other companies can sue your one for illegal comparison and Apple will throw you out of the app store if they find out.

    If you don't have one yet, get at least written statement of your company that they acknowledge all of that and will not do any actions against you if they are sued and you only do this as it is a direct order.

    Ideally reject this completely.

    From an external standpoint: What shitty product does your company have, that it believes it needs to have fake reviews to be successful?
  • 1
    @sbiewald a clone of Zoom
  • 5
    @Anakata and I suppose you (your company) cloned all the security holes as well?
  • 2
    @C0D4 Ye I was wondering If he did that as well.
  • 4
    Under Dutch law, posting fake reviews falls either under advertising fraud (positively reviewing own product) or libel/defamation (negatively reviewing competitors) -- both can lead to a €7.6k fine or 6 months in prison.

    I think it's the same for many countries, although the level of enforcement or punishment could vary.

    You are complicit when your employer demands illegal actions from you and you do not refuse. If "but my employer told me to do it" was a valid defense, hitmen would have a rather easy job.

    Technically, you are already complicit if you know your boss does this without your involvement, and you do not report it.

    In practice it's unlikely you end up being prosecuted or even fined for review fraud as an employee, because it's a rather low priority crime.

    But personally, I would castrate my employer with a rusty knife. Which is apparently also illegal, I think? Still... more it's more fun than clickfarming.
  • 4
    A clone of zoom definitely needs fake reviews. Zoom needs it too
  • 0
    @C0D4 or the online version since the book isnt available right now:

    http://automatetheboringstuff.com/
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