We were sent an anonymous tip last night that supposedly outted a well-known review blogger for unethical behavior.

It was a screenshot of email correspondence where the blogger explains how she’ll pretend to ‘randomly select’ a winner for the contest, but actually plans to give the item to a friend who could use the item.

For a variety of reasons we’ve opted not to share the identity of the review blogger. The issue raises some questions we'd like to propose:

• Are giveaway selections always random? How can we be sure?
• Is it fair for the selection process to fall on the blogger’s shoulders?
• How can bloggers guard against accusations of rigging giveaways?
• What should a blogger do when accusations arise?

Perhaps PR agencies and companies that routinely sponsor giveaways ought to take more initiative and proactively curtail potential favoritism and abuse by selecting the winners themselves.

Having a third party choose winners (particularly for expensive contests) would also protect the bloggers’ credibility and prevent charges of bad behavior.

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{photo credit: dpstyles}