A California marketing company settled charges that it engaged in deceptive advertising by getting its employees to write favorable reviews of clients' games on the Apple (AAPL) iTunes Store, The New York Times reported. The reviews did not mention that the authors were being paid to write approving comments.

This was the first case brought under new guidelines for Internet endorsements. The idea behind the rules is to bring the same standards of truth-in-advertisement to the Internet that exists elsewhere.

Under the terms of the settlement, Reverb Communications and one of its staff, Tracie Snitker, agreed to remove all of the iTunes reviews that appeared to be written by ordinary people, but which were in fact written by staff.

Reverb and Ms Snitker are also barred from making any similar endorsement                                        2
retirement.” Alvarez continued to work until August 2009, at which time he underwent
corrective surgery, went on medical leave, and filed a workers’ compensation insurance
claim. Alvarez claimed that, in September 2009, while still on leave, he was called into a
meeting where a supervisor asked about his injuries, informed him that his workers’
compensation claim had caused PHI to receive a poor industrial safety rating from its
insurer, and urged him to close any such claims. In November 2009, Alvarez was
released from medical leave and allowed to return to work with restrictions