Decision makers at companies need to start calling this behavior out to companies. "Oh, I saw you were #1 on CIOReview's 'Top 10 Solution Providers 2020' list, did you pay for that?"

I cannot fathom how easy it is for these sham "award" companies to make money; it seems every security startup has at least 3 or 4 of them plastered on their home pages. But it begs the question: how did CIOReview and similar companies become so popular (or trusted?) to the point where a feature on their website is _worth_ $3000?