Small Businesses Face a New Threat: Pay Up or Be Flooded With Bad Reviews (nytimes.com)
- Reference: 0179169730
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/09/11/2025226/small-businesses-face-a-new-threat-pay-up-or-be-flooded-with-bad-reviews
- Source link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/technology/fake-reviews-small-businesses.html
Industry watchdog Fake Review Watch documented over 150 affected businesses globally. The scammers typically operate from Pakistan and Bangladesh using WhatsApp to contact victims. Google removes most fraudulent content but offers no direct support channel for targeted businesses.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/technology/fake-reviews-small-businesses.html
Mob enablement technology (Score:2)
Nice.
Re:Mob enablement technology (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the free market speaking!
Re: (Score:2)
The captive market is always moving away from anything resembling free.
Re: (Score:2)
"Nice business you got there. It would be too bad if 2000 bad reviews happened to it"
Re: (Score:1)
Completely off the rails in the first sentence. Nice.
ID verification or pay to review? (Score:1)
For thousands of years we lived in small groups. If you talked smack about someone, it got back to them. We are not prepared for people thousands of miles away to libel us.
The only way to keep this from happening is to make it prohibitively expensive to pull this kind of nonsense- either via money or reputation.
Re: (Score:1)
Is "the only way to X is Y" ever true?
Re: (Score:2)
As the other guy suggests - there are better ways. One is to trust neighbours over strangers.
So you have a browser plugjn or AI tool to review the reviews.
One heuristics is that eviews by a friend, or a friend of a friend (FoF), or a FoFoFoF.. get more credence the closer they are to you. Or the more their tastes match yours.
Of course, this requires some way to authenticate each review. But that could be as simple as a byline at the foot of each review. An identifier, followed by a digitally signed message
As if anyone would notice (Score:5, Informative)
Most reviews on Google and Yelp are negative anyway. It's something most major retailers found out awhile ago, that people are generally only motivated to leave a review when they're pissed off enough to do so, so you have to offer a carrot (usually free stuff) to encourage customers who did have a good experience to leave positive reviews. Some car dealerships are even kind of pushy about asking that you leave a positive review for them.
South Park was way ahead of the game here and hilariously nailed it almost a decade ago. [1]"The Yelper Special" [youtube.com] (Also, it's South Park, so probably NSFW or anyone who doesn't want to hear a song about "Boogers and Cum", or anyone who doesn't want anyone around them to know they're listening to a song about "Boogers and Cum".)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDlR_ccnZww
Train consumers (Score:3)
Most people are motivated to leave a review because they want to bitch about something. So most will leave negative reviews.
So how do you find good businesses? Ignore negative reviews. Look for positive reviews.
Positive reviews are rare. A business really has to be on top of things to inspire someone to leave a positive review. So look for those.
Of course, then you have the problem of fake positive reviews. But only the business has a motivation for leaving those and they're usually easy to spot.
Its too bad (Score:2)
Reviews should be given by verified customers and these tactics certainly diminish the good and bad reviews consumers like me have given over the years.
All reviews are pointless these says. (Score:2)
It's equally easy to create fake good and fake bad reviews these days. That makes all reviews pointless.
One of many examples are film ratings. IMDB is owned by Amazon. Rotten Tomatoes is owned by Comcast and Warner Bros. Go to any of those public reviews and you'll see glowing stars across all titles.
Google for a film review, and you'll see people's ratings, usually 3 points out of 5 lower.
\o/ (Score:1)
Maybe every reviewer should themselves be reviewed. Personal trust score
Contact Google ..... ow wait ..... (Score:3)
Google won't do shit about these kinds of abuses.
sue google (Score:3, Interesting)
If Google refuses to remove the bogus reviews then Google needs to be taken to court. If you have evidence that someone is trying to extort you over reviews it should be a no-brainer for Google to take those down. If Google refuses to take down extortion reviews then Google is complicit. Sue them, see what happens, Not like you have much to lose.
Re: (Score:3)
Except for all the time you'll waste trying to find an attorney to take your case.
Re: (Score:3)
> If Google refuses to remove the bogus reviews then Google needs to be taken to court.
GLWT
> If Google refuses to take down extortion reviews then Google is complicit.
True. Now, how deep are your pockets?
Re: (Score:2)
The damage is already done by then, and google's data gets scraped by numerous subsidiary sites that may not update their records; the bad reviews live forever as echoes.