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Cheater Caught in Online Contest?
Volunteer judges picked the top 10 entries in each category and now the public will pick the winners from the finalists. An IP address can only vote once in a certain period of time. To cheat and cast multiple votes, you'd have to erase your cookies, close your browser, come back in and vote again. We believe most people are honest and since we can check, we knew we'd see any major aberrations. Then today, in a matter of minutes, there were 68 votes for the top-10 essays, made from the same IP address within a few seconds of each other. Not something that would occur without manipulation, says our tech guru. "An interesting sidenote," he emails, "many of the comments for the entry refer to the entrant by name - though that's not mentioned in the entry - or make other comments that could only be known by a family member /friend. I'd say all the comments for the entry are written by someone known to the entrant." Ballot stuffing. Unfair to the other contestants who are wiling to win honestly. We're deciding on what measures to take: eliminate the 68 votes, disqualify the entry, or some other way to handle it. Obviously, you don't want to make everyone who votes have to register or give an email address because that would seriously limit the number of votes. You don't want to penalize thousands of people because of a few unethical players. It's one thing for someone to email all their contacts and ask them to vote for them. It's another for the votes to all come from one IP address. So we're outing the cheater. We're watching you! Note to cheater: Try cheating again and I'll add your name to this post. I'm curious to know how other marketers have handled situations like this. How do you set up your contest voting to avoid cheating? Categories:
Alternative Marketing, Internet strategy, Marketing Strategy, Peer-to-peer, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Video Contests, Viral Marketing, Word of Mouth
Tags:
Karen Quinn's Wife in the Fast Lane Contest contest cheaters ethics Wife in the Fast Lane Karen Quinn social media marketing
BL Ochman
| Mar 9 07 4:34
| TrackBack (0)
CommentsFirstly, I'd say you should have been clearer so far as the rules were specified. I've just had a (admittedly quick) look and there's nothing set out about voting repeatedly. It may seem harsh but if you're setting up a competition of this sort then I'd say you have a responsibility to ensure that the rules are clear and that the necessary technical infrastructure is in place to prevent violation or, at least, identify attempted ones absolutely. After all, your current US president's team clearly breached ethics in the 2000 election and arguably did the same four years later so it's clearly a possible problem from the top down, however honest most people are. Secondly, you say you've identified "a cheater". Perhaps you've indeed identified a particularly clumsy instance of cheating. What about the others which may well be there but which were done far more subtly and efficiently? See point 1. Thirdly, it's not that difficult to spoof IP addresses and that's a fairly weak determinant of exclusivity. Add in the aspect that you may legitimately have several people (a family, say) all voting more or less simultaneously which you should allow for. You talk of "registering" and "participating". What happened to the former? Again, see point 1. Lastly, Estonia's recent election with internet voting allowed people to vote as many times as they wished but only one, the most recent vote at any time, counted. (And, of course, there were stringent identification/authentication processes in place). You're the marketing person! Tell me what happens when consumers, say, lose trust in the veracity of a company or its processes. Now stand back and evaluate the position here from that perspective. I'm not trying to be awkward or difficult but, subject to just what's involved here and what the implications might be for unresolved cheating or related difficulties and how egregious you think the cheating might be you might need to consider rerunning the whole thing more securely. Your call, of course. Posted by: Murdoch at March 14, 2007 5:06 PM Post a commentEmail this story to a friendTrackBacksTrackBack URL for this entry: |
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Contact: BL (at) whatsnextonline (dot) com
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Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also publishes the Ethics Crisis blog for SRF Global Translations
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