I was a pleb on that death star

This article on the Consumerist brought back some memories. Consumerist - Academic Publisher Pays Professors For Shill Amazon Reviews - College.

One of the comments on the original article seems to be more in line with my recollection of working for the Empire company:

News: Elsevier Won't Pay for Praise - Inside Higher Ed

Elsevier's PR spin is stopping well short of the truth. This campaign email is part of a bigger marketing campaign orchestrated by the entire marketing team for every publication. At minimum, there's a marketing manager who manages the list, a marketing director that s/he reports to, plus a marketing assistant who makes the coffee and sends out these emails based upon the decisions the other two make. These marketing assistants have absolutely no say-so in budgetary matters; they are junior employees learning the ropes and doing what they're told. So there's no way this marketing assistant just up and ran a $25/review campaign without sign-off from above. Despite what Elsevier is saying here, this trail leads all the way up to the Marketing Director, who certainly was happy to NOT take responsiblity on this and instead push it off on a "rogue employee." Folks, this is like the head basketball coach who lets the $25k/year assistant take the fall. It's a shame Elsevier not only won't own up to this, they continue to propogate lies ...

I was fairly high up in the org and couldn't have shipped $25 to anyone without my manager's approval and possibly not without her manager's approval. Of course I wasn't in marketing, so maybe they have more latitude? Also, "Jeff" is either a current or former editor or an author for Elsevier.  The lingo/description of the organization is too spot on.

In terms of full disclosure I now work for a company that competes with Elsevier, but I work in a division that doesn't compete with Elsevier, got that?