Selling on newsgroups?

In online discussion media, such as message boards, discussion forums, and newsgroups, shills may pose as independent experts, satisfied consumers, or “innocent” parties with specific opinions in order to further the interests of an organization in which they have an interest, such as a commercial vendor or special-interest group. For example, an employee of a company that produces a specific product may praise the product anonymously in a discussion forum or group in order to heighten and generate interest in that product, or a member or sympathizer of a special-interest group may pose as a highly-qualified expert in a specific field in order to give apparently disinterested support to whatever cause the group promotes.