Groupon (Netherlands) accused of spamming links

Groupon is in The Netherlands accused of organized spamming of links. They hired some students and let them register on dozens of internet forums where they act as normal users who are there to introduce themselves and later on just go with the flow, while subtly inserting links to Groupon.nl in their comments.

Groupon even thought it was okay to spam on a forum that is created specifically for people who suffer of multiple sclerosis. Groupon still have to give an official statement, but in their first reactions they say that they did not hire any students and that they know nothing about the link spam. Althought, some zealous forum members of the forum HigherLevel.nl discovered that all those spam accounts can be traced to Groupon.

I’m curious about what will happen next. First I’m curious of what Groupon really will have to say about this, and further more what Google may do, if they discover that Groupon is spamming links to improve their SEO results. And last but not least, maybe Groupon will get some pretty big penalties (a maximum of 450.000 euros (600k dollars) per violation) of the Dutch consumers authority.

( Dutch source: http://www.higherlevel.nl/forum/index.php?board=40;action=display;threadid=41332 )