AdVon's CEO, Ben Faw, and president, Eric Spurling, also operate another company called SellerRocket, which charges Amazon product sellers for coverage in the same publications where AdVon publishes product reviews. This has raised ethical questions about the undisclosed paid placements in product reviews. Despite the controversy, AdVon maintains that it uses AI responsibly in combination with human writers and editors and gives its publishing partners control over the level of AI tooling used in the content creation process.
Key takeaways:
- AdVon Commerce, a company that hires writers to create online product reviews, has been accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate content and then paying writers less to polish these drafts.
- The company has been linked to the publication of product reviews under fake bylines in reputable publications such as USA Today and Sports Illustrated, leading to accusations of "site reputation abuse".
- AdVon's CEO, Ben Faw, and president, Eric Spurling, also operate another company called SellerRocket, which charges sellers of Amazon products for coverage in the same publications where AdVon publishes product reviews.
- Despite AdVon's claims that its content is created by humans, evidence suggests that much of it is generated by AI, raising ethical questions about the blurring of lines between journalism and advertising.