Some users of the online marketplace have been buying and selling positive feedback as a Berkeley business professor found in his studies, with the aim of becoming a trusted seller and getting better prices from buyers.
pointed out the research paper making that claim. UC-Berkeley professor John Morgan, Haas School of Business, and doctoral student Jennifer Brown co-wrote the paper about the issue.
A supported by observations made by security firm Fortinet during the summer of 2006. They found that not only were these low-priced feedback pumping auctions taking place regularly, but bots were handling the behind the scenes work too.
Fortinet's Guillaume Lovet asked in his findings about the bot feedback if anyone might be willing to buy one of those one-cent auctions for an ebook called "The Secrets of The 1 Penny Auction." Morgan and Brown did that according to their recent work, except they bought the "Positive Feedback Ebook."
Its helpful advice said one should buy 100 different low-price items to boost feedback. One seller observed by Morgan who used this strategy turned around and offered parcels of land in the southern US for sale. None of those land deals resulted in any positive feedback.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. 
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