CNN and Blog Spam?

Nick Lewis, at SmartCampaigns.com, claims that CNN is engaging in some pretty shady blog spamming tactics to create buzz and affect search engine rankings. Nick saw some strange comment activity on his site and decided to see is there was a pattern... and there was. He noticed the same activities happening on other blogs commenting about CNN. Nick is convinced that CNN is behind these spamming activities, however, there was no solid connection established between these activities and CNN. No IP addresses have been traced back to CNN, and CNN hasn't commented on the subject. Right now, it's just a pretty convincing hunch, and a pretty scary hunch if Nick is right.

I do have a hard time believing that CNN would knowingly give the thumbs up to marketers openly insulting their programming. The most likely scenario I can see is that CNN is involved with a bad company, and much of this activity is happening without their knowledge. Stranger things have happened, though...

The point that Nick Lewis made that really struck home with me was the fact that if companies start adopting these tactics, we'll be in a world of hurt. While I have reservations about big brands being okay with this type of stuff, I realize that many companies feel powerless in the blogosphere, and some may resort to extreme measures to provide responses to flames about their brands. Of course, we'd all prefer honest conversation to "tactics."

Here's another article on the subject.

Link via B.L. Ochman's weblog.