Google Responds to Criticism of Fake Business Listings on Google Maps

A recent report pointed fingers at Google Maps for containing potentially millions of fake business listings which could mislead users. Google has now responded to the criticism by mentioning detailed statistics on the work it has done with Maps. The information was laid out on the company’s Maps blog. The company spokesperson also confirmed that out of the 200 million business listings, only a small percentage were fake.

Here are some of the highlights mentioned by Google on the Maps blog:

• We took down more than 3 million fake business profiles––and more than 90 percent of those business profiles were removed before a user could even see the profile.
• Our internal systems were responsible for more than 85 percent of these removals.
• More than 250,000 of the fake business profiles we removed were reported to us by users.
• We disabled more than 150,000 user accounts that were found to be abusive – a 50 percent increase from 2017

Google has reassured users that it is currently working on ways to improve reporting of suspicious behaviour while also encouraging users to fill out the Business Redressal Complaint Form (link) if they find suspicious businesses listed on Maps.

What’s encouraging here is the fact that Google is open and transparent about the work it’s doing with Maps. While there are always going to be fake accounts online, the fact that Google has also suspended abusive accounts is a welcome sign.

Source: Maps Blog

Via: TechCrunch