• NY Times, Tuesday, March 7, 2006 10:31 AM

Wal-Mart has given consumers one more glaring reason not to trust everything you read on the Internet. The retailing giant has enlisted several bloggers to evangelize the retailing giant and, in particular, to defend management's controversial decisions; right now this refers to the company's refusal to spend more on employee health insurance. The New York Times found several sentences on one blogger's site that had been extracted verbatim from a note written by employees at Edelman, one of Wal-Mart's public relations firms. The world's largest retailer is being very upfront about this latest word of mouth marketing initiative, saying it doesn't compensate bloggers but does offer them little incentives for a positive spin, like exclusive news nuggets, suggesting topics for postings, even invitations to its corporate headquarters. While it seems like Wal-Mart is covering its bases, the Times finds that many of these bloggers are not disclosing their closeness with the giant to their readers--even those who reprint what the company says word-for-word. Not surprisingly, many professional bloggers say this is unacceptable, as one of the first unspoken rules is that blogging is about one's voice, and reprints must be cited as such. 

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