At the accelerator I was in, this kind of behavior was encouraged. Not to this same degree of "unethical" but we had 'courses' on how to do this effectively. It's called being scrapy, right? (lulz)
And to answer your question, it's completely tolerated. Just look at the iOS store and the massive botnets that used to plague it. Every major company hired botnets to game the charts.
And to answer your question, it's completely tolerated. Just look at the iOS store and the massive botnets that used to plague it. Every major company hired botnets to game the charts.
Welcome to the Valley.
Edit: sorry, they called this "growth hacking".