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Quote:Hotels, restaurants and online shops that post glowing reviews about themselves under false identities could face criminal prosecution under new rules that come into force next year.

Businesses which write fake blog entries or create whole wesbites purporting to be from customers will fall foul of a European directive banning them from “falsely representing oneself as a consumer”.

From December 31, when the change becomes law in the UK, they can be named and shamed by trading standards or taken to court.

The Times has learnt that the new regulations also will apply to authors who praise their own books under a fake identity on websites such as Amazon...

Quote:Wal-Mart will eed to find a new advertising strategy.

Quote:Nothing beats word of mouth for getting people to put their hand in their pockets. So it didn't take long for cheeky marketing departments to cotton on to the power of blogs and pose as consumers praising their own particular widget to the skies to help lift their top line.

Sneaky, perhaps, but usually legal. Not for much longer, however, as covert commercial blogging - or flogging - will soon be banned by Brussels...

The directive catches all commercial organisations - big or small - and the upshot is that companies (including sole traders) will no longer be able to pay individual bloggers or professional agencies to post false or misleading blogs or reviews online. Nor will they be able to do it themselves...