PROGRAMED TO FAME: Sister Lotus is still popular since she rose to fame through Internet marketing in 2005 (CFP)

It is part of their daily work to delete posts and comments, said a Beijing website editor surnamed Zhang who works for a popular Chinese online forum. He has to review more than 2,000 comments each day. "There are so many topics that need to be monitored, and comments need to be deleted (for legitimate reasons) all the time. It would be very easy for me to delete negative posts about a company if I wanted to."

A young real estate website editor who didn't want to give his name said his job involves reposting articles about real estate agents from various sources and leaving forged complaints about these agents under pre-registered usernames.

"Negative comments are like intangible assets," said the 26-year-old editor. The involved property agents usually respond to the unfavorable comments by offering to advertise with his website, on the condition that these image-ruining posts are deleted.

Such is a common problem facing many Chinese enterprises, especially small, family-run firms that cannot afford to hire a PR firm to protect their reputation if they are deliberately defamed.

Legal trouble

Websites often run the risk of being sued for defamation if they refuse to delete comments about certain products. The most high-profile case was in 2007 when 315ts.net, a consumer rights protection website based in Beijing, was taken to court by two companies over posts they claimed damaging their image.

Doctor Bai, a cosmetics firm, and BiosTime Inc, which makes health food for children, filed lawsuits against the website claiming it had faked comments about their products. The court eventually ruled in the website's favor on the grounds there was no evidence to suggest the posts were not genuine.

"We receive at least five calls a day from people asking us to remove complaints from our website," said website CEO Wang Fushan, who insisted that his 30 staff members only delete content when a customer's problem is solved. Launched in 2005, the consumer-favored website has received more than 700,000 complaints from customers all over the country. After the lawsuit in 2007, users were asked to register and provide contact information to ensure the validity of their comments.

"Since these websites are private companies, they have the right to manage their content, which includes deleting posts," said Zhang Zhisheng, a lawyer with Zhongyin Law Firm in Beijing.

Industry experts have been arguing the "watering army" and some practices of online marketing could undermine consumer trust in the Internet. They call for stricter policies to protect the rights of netizens and ensure fair competition.

It's reported more than 50 percent of the Internet's hot or "controversial" postings are manipulated by marketers instead of random popularity. However, there are no related laws or regulations to curb such practices, which are arguably ethically wrong.

The "watering army" has attracted attention from the government. At a recent press conference, Wang Chen, Minister of the State Council Information Office, said the country's top leaders had called for a thorough and serious examination of this Internet business.

The State Council Information Office is working on measures to manage and control the "watering army" in accordance with the law, Wang said. This is the first official response to such an issue from the government.