Belkin officially responed today to allegations of paying consumers for positive reviews on Amazon, describing the such actions as "unethical".
The company found itself in a bad position as one of its employees was offering to pay consumers to review Belkin products on Amazon.com.
According to Engadget.com, the employee is Michael Bayard, a Business Development Representative at Belkin.
He posted an ad on the Mechanical Turk site offering to pay a paltry $0.65 per 5/5 review placed on Amazon of a Belkin product.
Belkin has officially responed today saying that it has taken actions and described it as an "isolated incident".
"Belkin has always held itself to the highest standards of corporate ethics and its employees to the highest standards of personal integrity. Similarly, we support our online user community in discussion and reviews of our products, whether the commentary is good or bad. So, it was with great surprise and dismay when we discovered that one of our employees may have posted a number of queries on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website inviting users to post positive reviews of Belkin products in exchange for payment," said mark Reynoso, president of Belkin.
"Belkin does not participate in, nor does it endorse, unethical practices like this. We know that people look to online user reviews for unbiased opinions from fellow users and instances like this challenge the implicit trust that is placed in this interaction. We regard our responsibility to our user community as sacred, and we are extremely sorry that this happened," Reynoso added.
The company has already removed all associated postings from the Mechanical Turk system.