If you can’t pitch the press, pay them. That’s the proposition some review sites have for publicity-starved iPhone developers.

Several websites dedicated to iPhone app reviews are requesting payments from developers in exchange for writeups of their apps, Wired.com has learned. Those payments are not always clearly disclosed to readers, and the practice hasn’t received much discussion outside of gaming blogs.

Soliciting money in exchange for a product review is not illegal, but the practice should raise questions about the credibility and independence of the review sites, critics say.





“They prey on people who need exposure,” said Oliver Cameron, developer of the popular iPhone app Postman, who has avoided pitching his apps to sites that request payment for reviews. “It strikes me as a paid ad, really. They never seem to actually ‘review’ it.”

The two sites that were most frequently mentioned by programmers who contacted Wired.com were TheiPhoneAppReview.com and AppCraver.com. Both sites appear in the top four Google search results for the search term “iPhone app review.”

With more than 150,000 apps in the iPhone App Store, rising above the crowd is a major challenge for developers. Getting a good review on the web can help drive sales and that, in turn, can raise an app’s profile within the App Store. While apps that earn their creators hundreds of thousands of dollars are rare, they do exist, and many developers seek publicity in hopes of achieving this dream.

Driven by that demand, app review websites are offering to “expedite” reviews — that is, bring apps to the front of the review queue — in exchange for a fee. But at least one site, ThePhoneAppReview.com, has gone even further, and threatened to shun products whose developers haven’t paid for reviews.

The iPhone App Review told independent developer Michael D’Ulisse it would not review his app Pocket Labeler at all unless he paid a fee of $25. The demand is at odds with the website’s About section, which implies that fees only apply to reviews that are expedited. D’Ulisse provided a copy of an e-mail from a site editor:

I would be interested in writing a review and having it on our website (www.theiphoneappreview.com). We do charge a $25 fee for reviews (this is used to compensate our authors), so the decision is yours. If you want a review written, but have no promo codes left, I can purchase the app and add the price of the app into your invoice. Let me know either way. Thanks! –Sarah Parker

The iPhone App Review

D’Ulisse noted that on a separate occasion in November 2009, he received the same e-mail response from The iPhone App Review when he distributed press releases for his app 2,001 Easy Gifts.

“So you’ve got a reviewer, and she’s an editor at the site who wants to use my app personally but will not post a review on her site unless I give her $25,” D’Ulisse wrote. “What happened to journalistic integrity?”

The iPhone App Review’s editor-in-chief Shaun Campbell said he was unaware that his site’s writers were requesting payment in exchange for reviews. He explained that the reviewers work autonomously, so he is unsure of how they’re paid by app creators. As of this writing, The iPhone App Review’s About section remains unchanged, stating that fees only apply to expedited app reviews.

“I have never once sent a request for a fee to a developer to review their app,” Campbell told Wired.com. “That is not our policy, which is why that is not stated in the About.”

Campbell said that his site’s policy is to offer expedited service in exchange for a fee because with the gigantic number of apps in the App Store, it would be an “impossible task to review all the apps we receive, paid or unpaid.” He added that very few talented writers would be willing to review iPhone apps for free and that providing payment ensures quality work.

“The iPhone App Review is not a PR charity,” Campbell said. “We’re a business, and like in any business, there are costs that need to be recovered.”

Requiring payment for product reviews is not illegal, but the Federal Trade Commission has frowned on the practice. The commission believes a paid review can easily be the same as a paid advertisement, and consumers as a result may be misled into purchasing a product based on a falsely positive evaluation that was bought.

To address the issue, the FTC in October 2009 published revised guidelines governing endorsements for bloggers, requiring bloggers to provide disclosure whenever a review is written in exchange for money or gifts.

Rich Cleland of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection said he could not comment on specific websites, because they must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. He said that in general, so long as payments are disclosed clearly and accurately, it is not considered misleading to the public.

“If a consumer knows that a producer pays for the review to appear, the consumer can make up their own mind to what extent that affects the credibility of the review,” Cleland told Wired.com in a phone interview. “From our perspective, the primary issue is not the payment but the disclosure of the payment.”

Still, paid reviews should raise questions about a publication’s credibility, he added.

“It’s reasonable to assume that a significant number of consumers wouldn’t give the same level of credibility to something they thought was a paid review versus something they thought was an independent review,” Cleland said.

Every time a review is written in exchange for pay, it should be explicitly disclosed on that review, Cleland said. Paid reviews on The iPhone App Review do not include such a disclosure in the text of the review.

AppCraver.com also seeks payment for expedited reviews. Lore Sjöberg, Wired.com’s Alt Text columnist, said he submitted his iPhone app The Cyborg Name Decoder to AppCraver.com for review, and in response the site offered to expedite a review of his app for $150. The letter included a promise to contact Sjöberg “prior to publishing a review that scores lower than 5/10.”

The e-mail also offered Sjöberg the opportunity to buy an advertisement on the site, along with the promise that every advertised app would also receive an editorial review.

AppCraver did not respond to Wired.com’s request for comment. However, it’s worth noting that AppCraver has, in some reviews, disclosed when reviews are “expedited,” providing a link to the site’s policy about paid expedited reviews, which states, “Simply put, an Expedited Review is one where the developer paid to move to the front of the line. Developers can NOT buy a good score.”

Not all iPhone app review sites require money or gifts in exchange for write-ups. The creators of app review sites 148Apps and Slide to Play authored a set of ethical standards called Organization for App Testing Standards, or OATS, that they hope other sites will commit and adhere to.

“Steve and I created OATS out of our concern for the lack of ethics when we started seeing more and more of these sites,” said Jeff Scott of 148Apps. “While we strive to stick to standard practices of editorial integrity, there are others that seem to operate under a very different set of morals,” said Scott.

Slide to Play’s Steve Palley said paid reviews are detrimental to the community of iPhone developers and customers.

“Paid reviews damage our entire ecosystem because they harm consumers, period, full stop,” Palley told Wired.com in an e-mail. “People who think they are reading objective reviews are going to be disappointed after taking paid ‘advice.'”

Added Palley, “We decided that we needed to do something to put a stop to it.”

The FTC’s Cleland said that if blogs are not clearly or honestly disclosing payments for reviews, consumers can file complaints to the FTC’s online Complaint Assistant or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357).

Update: 2:30 p.m. PDT — Matt Marquez, a Mac Directory editor, has published a post about his experience applying for a job at The iPhone App Review, in which Campbell said all writers were required to charge a fee to developers for reviews.

Update: March 19, 10 p.m. PDT: — The Today in iPhone podcast has posted another e-mail showing a The iPhone App Review author requesting payment in exchange for a review last month — with no mention of expedited service. The PayPal ID listed for sending payments is Shaun Campbell.



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Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com