My competitor's bright idea

You can't make this stuff up!

[Nick Jachelson]

One of my competitors, lets call her A, frustrated with the increasing competition in the Widgets niche set up a website called "WidgetFraud", to serve as an independent watchdog of sorts. On the site she put up what appear to be testimonials from angry customers attacking competitors B, C, and D, while at the same time not-so-subtly praising competitor A. The site has a private domain registration of course, but it's blatantly obvious who is behind it, also due to it's similar design and content to her other sites. Any complaint about A's site gets quickly deleted.

Competitor B, understandably ticked off, registers a domain for "WidgetScam" where he puts up negative cosumer reports and other dirt about competitor A. Any complaint about B's site gets quickly deleted.

I can't help but chuckle from the sidelines as they go at it destroying each other's reputations. Or, even better, perhaps they will even waste all their profits and energy suing each other for libel.

[Matt Probert]

I can't help but chuckle from the sidelines as they go at it destroying each other's reputations. Or, even better, perhaps they will even waste all their profits and energy suing each other for libel.

An example of capitalism in action at its worse.

Matt

[Rosalind]

I recently took the step of making my forum a no-specifics one, along the lines of WebmasterWorld, and this is exactly why. How can you trust anything people say about other companies online?

It's funny when people do it badly and you can see straight through it. But it makes you wonder, because not everyone is a bad liar.

[timchuma]

Just start up your own site that shows complaints/comments from all the businesses/products and offer it as a resource to the companies involved.

[wildbest]

LOL... the wild, wild west...

Well, may be this is the reason why the Web is such an amazing opportunity now!