cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50778217
🗺️ While visiting Pride Berlin, I learned how utterly pointless Google Maps Reviews in Germany are.
⭐ Any place can simply report negative reviews for defamation or claim the person was never there and have it removed.
Users can then appeal & risk a lawsuit.
When a review is removed the removed count on Google Maps goes up (🖼️ 1)
However that count is reset after 365 days and also only goes to 250! (🖼️ 2)
Therefore companies can simply mass report negative reviews to improve their rating.
https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/16997273
So many vulnerable people are relying on Google Maps reviews & ratings to tell them where it is save to go.
Some places have only 1000-2000 reviews but >250 reviews removed in the past 365 days!
Like how bad must the situation there be?!
Absolute shame.
Obligatory ‘Fuck Google’.
They should just straight up put a big, red exclamation mark on averages for places where unusually many reviews are removed, with an appeal process for the business, not the users.
On that lawsuit thing thought: You don’t risk anything by appealing. Courts don’t care what Google has to say. The business can sue you right away, they don’t need to remove anything first. If what you said are simple facts however, there is nothing they can do. Nothing but ask Google to remove it anyway.