QuickWire: Company Sets Up Unauthorized College Facebook Groups

More than 200 high-school students joined a Facebook group for New York University’s class of 2015 that appeared to be set up by the university but was actually established as a marketing scheme for a company called Roomsurf.com, according to a report in today’s New York Times. The report said the company also set up similar Facebook groups that seem to be affiliated with other colleges, including Hamilton College (N.Y.), Middlebury College, Tufts University, Wesleyan University, and the University of Texas at Austin. The founder of Roomsurf.com, Justin Gaither, told the Times that he took issue with the characterization that the pages were deceptive, but admitted that he set them up using a fake name. A similar incident occurred two years ago, when a company called CollegeProwler set up Facebook pages that seemed to be created by colleges.