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Magazine & newspaper reviews have traditionally been paid for, by the magazine, not the author. But a blogger isn't writing for pay (usually). And an indie/self-pub author doesn't have a publishing company or marketing venue to nudge indirectly for reviews. Many magazines & newspapers flat-out won't touch self-published works, won't review them no matter how good they are. NYTimes ebook rankings won't list self-published ebooks. So indie ebook authors are forced out of many of the normal review/popularity venues; I don't think it's wrong of them to look into paying for reviews.
As more self-publishing takes off, I can see more authors offering to pay for reviews--good or bad--on the grounds that any publicity is better than none. And most of the reviews will be (1) honest and (2) positive, because authors who *know* the value of a good review, and are willing to pay for it, are more likely to know how to write a good book.
I'm not sure there's a big difference between "I'll give you a free copy of my book for a review" and "I'll give you a free copy + $10 for a review."
However. There is a difference, and a tendency to review positively anything one's being paid for--the focus of the work has shifted from "I'm writing this for random readers, because I think they'll want it" to "I'm writing this for the author, because I know she'll want it." And there's always the tendency to want to protect any source of income; it's easy to skew the review positively just because the reviewer is well-disposed toward the author.
I'd think it shouldn't be counted towards the "three good reviews," but I wouldn't think a paid-for review was worthless. And if the listings include links to the reviews, they could include 3 traditionally impartial reviews, plus a link to the paid review, which could help people decide if they'd be interested in that book.
It's also possible that paid reviews should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, with some of them being acceptable and some not. (By "some" I mean "some review blogs" or "some reviewers," not deciding whether each review is okay. "AccurateReviewsForTwentyBucks.com" reviews might be acceptable while "PayForPromos.com" might be out. But either accept all the reviews at ARFTB or not.) But that's probably both too much work, and too much politicking/headaches.
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