Google has responded to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, which claims that Maps hosts millions of fake business listings.
The detailed article delves into the issue of fake listings on Google Maps. For instance, in one New York City area, the Journal discovered an alarming number of inaccuracies:
“A search for plumbers in a section of New York City revealed that 13 out of the top 20 Google search results had false addresses. Only two of the 20 businesses were located where they claimed and accepted customers at their listed addresses, which are requirements for pushpin listings on Google Maps.”
Some fake listings merely direct customers to non-existent businesses, while others aim to scam customers out of significant amounts of money. In other scenarios, fake listings are created by competitors to misdirect customers. Although this is strictly prohibited by Google, the Wall Street Journal indicates that the policy is not rigorously enforced.
According to the Journal’s sources, hundreds of thousands of fake listings emerge each month:
“Hundreds of thousands of false listings appear on Google Maps each month, according to experts. Google claims it catches many others before they surface.”
### Google’s Response
Shortly after the Wall Street Journal’s article began to circulate, Google published a blog post titled “How we fight fake business profiles on Google Maps.”
Google admits there is a problem with fake business listings, but refrains from divulging specific details:
“It’s a constant balancing act and we’re continually working on new and better ways to combat these scams using a variety of ever-evolving manual and automated systems. However, we can’t share too many details about these efforts without risking aiding scammers in finding new ways to bypass our systems—which would undermine the purpose of all our efforts.”
Google states it removed over 3 million fake business profiles last year, with 90% taken down before users even saw the profiles. The internal systems were responsible for 85% of these removals, whereas roughly 250,000 fake profiles were reported by users.
While significant progress is being made in preventing bad actors from scamming customers through Google Maps, Google acknowledges there is still more work to be done and is committed to improving further.
