09.01.09
Comcast AstroTurfing on the Web (with Radian6)
Summary: Comcast seemingly uses the services of AstroTurfing agency Radian6 to police and discourage people who complain about its services
Comcast’s relationship with Microsoft is something which we remarked on before and the company’s flagrant disregard for law — likewise [1, 2]. Comcast is an inherently bad company. How does Comcast address this issue? By improving its behaviour? No. By spying on critics and trying to bury their complaints.
“Radian6 has indexed my complaints about Comcast,” writes Ryan. As the comment there shows, they also had Comcast respond, under a female name, as usual. It’s a typical PR routine.
For those who do not know what Radian6 is all about, see our posts about Visible Technologies [1, 2] which does pretty much the same thing and also learn about other Microsoft PR agencies which would even bribe bloggers for positive publicity that helps their clients. The Radian6 homepage itself says:
By enhancing the richness of social media metrics atop web analytics data, brands can see the impact of social media content on their own website traffic, conversions, and sales.
Maybe Comcast should spend more time improving, not spying on critics like a paranoid. As for Radian6, it’s a malicious leech which the Internet is better off without. █
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Yuhong Bao said,
September 6, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Well, in this case, it appears there was disclosure at the end that the one responding is from Comcast.