Yesterday I posted a short note about being asked to review my own book by the Amazon system that follows up when you buy something from them.
When I opened The Guardian later in the day, I found this article about a practice known as "sock puppeting". It turns out that this means authors reviewing their own books on the internet using a pseudonym!
There's a quote near the end of the article by Northern Irish crime writer, Stuart Neville, who says "... companies such as Amazon should look at tightening up their own procedures and policies to minimise this kind of behaviour. Any system can be gamed if someone knows the right tricks to play, but it shouldn't be as easy as it seems at present."
It's a very good article and taught me a lot - and I don't know Alison Flood who wrote it!
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