EPThttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g. political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participant(s). It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations more credibility by withholding information about the source's financial connection. The term astroturfing is a derivation of AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to look like natural grass, a play on the word "grassroots." The implication behind the use of the term is that there are no "true" or "natural" grassroots, but rather "fake" or "artificial" support, though some astroturfing operatives defend the practice (see Justification below).
So I've come up with an idea that astroturfing may be helping some companies while damaging others.
For example, I've encountered many anti-Apple YouTube comments and anti-Apple threads on tech forums. The same is true for Samsung, such as anti-Samsung threads. Then these astroturfers will promote other brands, for example, HTC and give artificial comments on YouTube such as "The HTC One is the best smartphone, bla bla bla, soo much better than iPhone" And the comments from the same person will be spammed, "liked" artificially and then commented on artificially with fake YouTube accounts to boost the comment's rank on the YouTube comment feed. I think that some of these may be employees from other companies such as HTC, Motorola, Sony, etc.
People tend to criticize and hate the popular brands and love the less popular brands, which may shift the momentum of industry affected by astroturfing.
I think astroturfing is unethical and undermines the hard work of Apple and Samsung and all these other great companies. I bet millions of Apple iPhones and Samsung Galaxies were not sold due to astroturfing by other companies.
So does astroturfing really influence a company's revenues and profits? What do you guys think?
