Digital Payola?

Evidently trade book publishers aren't the only ones anxious to get positive word of mouth about their books out onto the internet. Textbook publisher Reed Elsevier found itself apologizing for what it said was an employee's "overzealous" attempt to generate buzz for its titles. Seems this individual sent out an e-mail announcing that anyone writing a "five-star" review of any of Reed Elsevier's new textbooks on either Amazon's or Barnes and Noble's e-commerce sites would get a free copy of the book and a $25.00 Amazon gift certificate from the publisher.


Makes you wonder about the "impartiality" of some of those reviews.