Microsoft secretly paying YouTube personalities for 'positive' Xbox One promotion

Microsoft secretly paying YouTube personalities for 'positive' Xbox One promotionWashington, Jan 21 : Microsoft is reportedly secretly paying money to YouTube personalities for promoting its latest Xbox One gaming console.

The software maker is believed to have paid out three dollars per thousand views to these personalities, including one popular games platform Machinima.

According to PC World, a tweet from Machinima UK, which has been now deleted, displayed an image of Microsoft's gaming console and claimed to pay additional CPM bonus of 3 dollars for its promotion.

A leaked Machinima email confirmed the deal with the software maker with rules that required, incorporating thirty seconds of game footage into a video and specifically mention that it's played on an Xbox One; tagging the video with XB1M13; and then submitting the link through Poptent, a platform that specializes in crowd-sourced video-marketing campaigns like Microsoft's.

The rules for getting the bonus also required the content creator to keep the promotion confidential and not say anything negative or disparaging about Machinima, Xbox One or any of its games in their videos.

The report said that as per FTC rules, bloggers are supposed to make it clear which posts are paid endorsements, which apparently Microsoft has violated with its Machinima campaign. (ANI)