Adam, you really need to relax a bit. There are many reasons why a post may be written when it would not otherwise be written - perhaps the owners of the two business are friends, perhaps the other company is advertising, perhaps the author wants to curry favour with a certain business (for clarity, I have done all of these) ..... paying $5 commission is pretty low down the scale.
(I traded a £400 conference ticket recently for a brief mention - not a recommendation, a mention - of the event on my site, albeit I got no commission on sales generated.)
As I see overnight that the Koch boys have just helped acquire one of your most public promoters of climate change, in order to silence it, I suggest you turn your energies that way.