An example: The North Face edited wikipedia to change the photos of famous hikes/outdoorsy locations with people wearing North Face jackets with the logos visible.
“North Face Brazil’s CEO said in a statement. “With the ‘Top of Images’ project, we achieved our positioning and placed our products in a fully contextualised manner as items that go hand in hand with these destinations.””
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/30/north-fac...
5/2019: The North Face, in a campaign with advertising agency Leo Burnett Tailor Made, hatched a scheme to get its products to the top of Google Images by replacing Wikipedia photos with its own product placement shots.
In the promotional video, the company notes how all trips begin with an initial Google search, and often the first image that shows up is from a Wikipedia article about the destination. ...
The video brags about how North Face cleverly hacked the results to get its products to the top of Google search, “paying absolutely nothing just by collaborating with Wikipedia.” Only, it wasn’t a collaboration at all; it was a violation of Wikipedia’s terms of service for paid advocacy. ...
I hadn't heard of this but it is beyond sleazy in my book. Though, to the company's credit, I cannot fault for the actions of likely one or a small group of marketing people. Though I don't know, maybe, that type of idea had visibility all the way to the top.