I made the foolish mistake of contacting DISH and reporting that I was receiving these spam comments. The response I received was little more than a brush-off.

http://www.peterlitman.com/2012/01/dish-network-shame-on-you-for.html

Within a few minutes I got another Dish comment post (see below). The part that stuck with me was “I have also spoken to my team.” So, it is an organized effort.

Hey Peter, thanks for the prompt response. Sorry it’s taken a few days to get back. I actually ran into one of your posts today concerning DISH and the “Astroturfing”. Lol, I like that term. To answer your question, yes, DISH does encourage posting on blog sites. We feel that social media, and the ability to connect with different demographics in various ways is, and will be of vital importance in the coming years. This being said, I also completely understand your frustration with certain posts or responses which seem off topic. We do NOT encourage spam, flippant remarks or poorly-researched writings. One of DISH’s key business rules is “Know your Business and Be prepared”. I try to follow this rule, and although I am not an accomplished technophile yet, I certainly strive to be in-tune with current trends and the exciting world of Entertainment Technology. For the record, I live and work in Colorado, at DISH Headquarters, and although I would love to travel to India, I have not made the trip yet. To my knowledge there is no DISH Social Media team currently working in India, so I am curious as to how you got a UT from New Delhi. Can you give me any more information concerning these posts so that I might investigate further? This would be greatly appreciated, and I will do my best to get you some more info on the Hopper navigation options as soon as I have it . 

P.S.: I have also spoken to my team, and you should not have to worry any further about DISH Network-related posts on your blog. Sorry for the inconvenience, and if you have any further questions or concerns with regard to DISH products, usage or upcoming releases, I’d be happy to correspond. Thanks again. 

http://www.peterlitman.com/2012/01/dish-network-shame-on-you-for.html

Within a few minutes I got another Dish comment post (see below). The part that stuck with me was “I have also spoken to my team.” So, it is an organized effort.

Hey Peter, thanks for the prompt response. Sorry it’s taken a few days to get back. I actually ran into one of your posts today concerning DISH and the “Astroturfing”. Lol, I like that term. To answer your question, yes, DISH does encourage posting on blog sites. We feel that social media, and the ability to connect with different demographics in various ways is, and will be of vital importance in the coming years. This being said, I also completely understand your frustration with certain posts or responses which seem off topic. We do NOT encourage spam, flippant remarks or poorly-researched writings. One of DISH’s key business rules is “Know your Business and Be prepared”. I try to follow this rule, and although I am not an accomplished technophile yet, I certainly strive to be in-tune with current trends and the exciting world of Entertainment Technology. For the record, I live and work in Colorado, at DISH Headquarters, and although I would love to travel to India, I have not made the trip yet. To my knowledge there is no DISH Social Media team currently working in India, so I am curious as to how you got a UT from New Delhi. Can you give me any more information concerning these posts so that I might investigate further? This would be greatly appreciated, and I will do my best to get you some more info on the Hopper navigation options as soon as I have it . 

P.S.: I have also spoken to my team, and you should not have to worry any further about DISH Network-related posts on your blog. Sorry for the inconvenience, and if you have any further questions or concerns with regard to DISH products, usage or upcoming releases, I’d be happy to correspond. Thanks again. 

http://www.peterlitman.com/2012/01/dish-network-shame-on-you-for.html

Within a few minutes I got another Dish comment post (see below). The part that stuck with me was “I have also spoken to my team.” So, it is an organized effort.

Hey Peter, thanks for the prompt response. Sorry it’s taken a few days to get back. I actually ran into one of your posts today concerning DISH and the “Astroturfing”. Lol, I like that term. To answer your question, yes, DISH does encourage posting on blog sites. We feel that social media, and the ability to connect with different demographics in various ways is, and will be of vital importance in the coming years. This being said, I also completely understand your frustration with certain posts or responses which seem off topic. We do NOT encourage spam, flippant remarks or poorly-researched writings. One of DISH’s key business rules is “Know your Business and Be prepared”. I try to follow this rule, and although I am not an accomplished technophile yet, I certainly strive to be in-tune with current trends and the exciting world of Entertainment Technology. For the record, I live and work in Colorado, at DISH Headquarters, and although I would love to travel to India, I have not made the trip yet. To my knowledge there is no DISH Social Media team currently working in India, so I am curious as to how you got a UT from New Delhi. Can you give me any more information concerning these posts so that I might investigate further? This would be greatly appreciated, and I will do my best to get you some more info on the Hopper navigation options as soon as I have it . 

P.S.: I have also spoken to my team, and you should not have to worry any further about DISH Network-related posts on your blog. Sorry for the inconvenience, and if you have any further questions or concerns with regard to DISH products, usage or upcoming releases, I’d be happy to correspond. Thanks again. 

I moderate three large reader-oriented sites for a publishing conglomerate. I started tracking Dish Network comment spam because I find it extremely offensive, and they keep posting it at my sites.

The comment spam is posted by real Dish Network employees. You can find evidence of their independent human existence. However, the rate, frequency, and location of the spam comments they post is not characteristic of normal online behavior.

Not everyone posts comments on line, but people who do comment talk about whatever interests them and whatever’s on their mind. They don’t just comment about one subject, and they don’t emit commercial advertising copy.

Sane human beings acting on their own don’t normally post three hundred slight variations on the same comment. If they hit eight or ten large, diverse, interesting websites in a morning, they aren’t moved to post the same comment about Dish Network sling attachments on every one of those sites. They don’t profess themselves to be a hugely enthusiastic fan of something, then post nothing but encomiums to Dish Network on a site devoted to that thing. They don’t become registered users on a community site and then do nothing but post Dish Network spam on it. And when people are posting out of genuine enthusiasm for some subject, what they post is far weirder, more personal, and more diverse than the text of Dish Network spam comments.

I’ve managed to identify a couple of Dish Network comment-spamming employees who also write online for their own amusement during their off hours. Most, however, don’t. I find this significant. As a rule, lurkers lurk and commenters comment. It’s a matter of temperament, not subject matter. Occasionally a lurker will comment, or a commenter think twice before starting to type, but those are the exception.

If Dish Network employees are posting comments out of sheer enthusiasm, they should all be natural commenters. They aren’t. I’m afraid that what this suggests to me is that they’re being required to do it. (If so, I’m squicked.)

Onward to the few DN employees I’ve found who do write on line: As you’ve no doubt noticed, Dish Network spam comments tend to start with 1-3 sentences of camouflage material that’s marginally relevant to the thread in which they’re posted. What I’ve observed is that the style of the camouflaging material tends to match the personal writing style of the employee, but the central commercial message does not. My guess is that they’re given some kind of script or promotional copy to paraphrase, and that that forms the core of the spam text. The employees then add camouflage sentences specific to the venue in which they post the spam.

Another telling point about Dish Network spammers who also write for their own amusement. You know what I don’t find in their off-hours writing? Any mention of Dish Network. If they’re so enthusiastic that they’re spontaneously posting advertisements all the hell over the place, they ought to talk about their jobs. So far, I haven’t spotted a single instance of them doing that.

If you want to double-check me, here’s the years-long 223-post thread from Indeed.com about what it’s like to work at Dish Network: http://www.indeed.com/forum/cmp/Echostar-%28dish-Network%29/s-company-culture-at-EchoStar-DISH-Network/t35521/p4. You can also try Googling on “dish network” plus “customer reviews” or “customer complaints”. This company is neither happy nor well-run nor honest.

So here’s the short version: the comments you’ve been getting are indeed spam, and should be deleted. Future comments that resemble them should also be deleted. You should block comments coming in from 204.76.128.217. If you see a comment where someone is saying positive things about Dish Network, assume it’s spam. Run some basic checks on it — check it in Disqus, or Google on the user’s name and address, or Google on a distinctive character string in the commercial portion of the comment — and if it tests out as spam, block that user as well as the IP address. If you know other site managers who keep an eye on Dish Network spam, consider swapping ban lists.

You don’t have to explain or justify it to anyone. It’s your site.

So I emailed her:
You commented on a post at
placeshiftingenthusiasts.com.

Do you work for Dish? Is there some
kind of incentive they give you to post comments on
websites?
Response:  I do work for Dish,
but no they do not give me any incentive for making a comment about a product
they carry. I just really enjoy their product and wanted to let people know that
there is something better and cheaper out there.

I haven’t kept track, but I’ll keep an eye out.