Microsoft Attempts to Buy Favorable Reviews for Xbox One on Youtube

It’s commonly believed (and in many cases true) that reviews in any field can get bought off by companies trying to control their product’s image, and it looks like Microsoft just got caught trying to do that very thing for the Xbox One.

Youtuber’s affiliated with Machinima have reported being offered a +3 CPM rate (extra $3 every 1,000 views) via email in exchange for videos that give favorable reviews of the Xbox One, have at least 30 seconds of Xbox One game play, verbal mention of the depicted, and tagging the video with “XB1M13”.

While like I said, bought reviews are not uncommon, there is one aspect of the deal that is especially worrisome, the fact that those who agree to the terms are not allowed to disclose information that they agreed to such a deal. Most times companies do favors for a reviewer they must list this fact, such as announcing that they’ve received promotional and/or review versions of a product, thus disclosing to viewers that some degree of bias could occur. In the case of this Microsoft deal however, content creators on youtube can not inform viewers that they are getting some sort of benefit out of a positive review. The document’s exact wording being: “You agree to keep confidential at all times all matters relating to this Agreement, including, without limitation, the Promotional Requirements, and the CPM Compensation, listed above.”

Though it’s not unbelievable that a situation like this has occurred, the fact that there is proof of such purchasing of reviews added on to the attempted secrecy for it, is honestly outrageous. The deal is said to only be available until Feb 7th of this year, and only if the combined number of participants reach 12.5 millions views by this time. You can check out the full version of the legal document here.

Source: TechSpot