Business Owner Boosts Stars

Google Maps tips & tricks
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Hello @Bobiisha , this is a fairly detailed question. Are there some circumstances where a business owner can rate their own business? I just want to be sure before reporting…

This business that I am looking at their Google Reviews is a partnership. Maybe the one owner/partner received services from the other owner/partner and that justifies putting a rating?

I don’t think the rules can be interpreted that way, just want to be alert to the right interpretation! :nerd_face:

In this instance, the business has started getting some bad reviews and it looks like about a year back one of the owners put in a 5 star rating to boost the company rank. I believe that is against Google policy and that there are no exceptions. Because that is the Google system, I believe it is fraud and misrepresentation for an owner to put their own review.

Is this accurate? Or are there exceptions that may apply?

One other thing that is possible is that the owner has a son with the same first and last name and who is not a partial owner. Should I check that before reporting that rating? Or is it your advice to report the whole business rather than just the rating in such a scenario?

…And one more question: I know that employees are not permitted to put reviews, even of places they worked in the past. Are their exceptions to this? For example, if a prior employ of an equipment repair firm later brings equipment there for repair, may they then justly post a review? Sometimes I see company pages where I know people working at a company have had their arms twisted by ownership to post favorable reviews. If these are reported as a Conflict of Interest, the Google rep checking on it would have to do a lot of work to discover what is happening. Is it better to just not report that type of infraction? Or go ahead and report it even though there may not be a way to understand the employee relationship?

Thanks for your help!

Cowboy Z :cowboy_hat_face:

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Thanks for asking @Cowboy_Z

Our first reference is always Prohibited and Restricted Content

Conflict of Interest

Maps user contributed content is most valuable when it is honest and unbiased. Examples of disallowed practices include, but are not limited to:

  • Reviewing your own business.
  • Posting content about a current or former employment experience.
  • Posting content about a competitor to manipulate their ratings.

Another interesting point is Spam and fake content:

  • Your content should reflect your genuine experience at the location and should not be posted just to manipulate a place’s ratings. Don’t post fake content, don’t post the same content multiple times, and don’t post content for the same place from multiple accounts.

Rating is one of the most important element of a business listing in Google Maps. More than reviews and photos. The rating appear immediately after the name of the business, and can influence in a relevant way the choice of a potential customer. That’s why “Your content … should not be posted just to manipulate a place’s ratings”

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The first target of most of business in Google Maps is to keep an High Rating.

Most of the businesses work on this in the proper way, improving product and services, a few try some trick, asking for inappropriate reviews from employees (or students, as recently reported) and from the member of the family. Sometimes this seems to be so natural (how not to give five stars to your uncle’s business?). However, all this kind of contributions are going to manipulate (in a positive or negative way) the rating. So, for extension, we can say that “any contribution added just to manipulate the rating is prohibited, whether intentional or not”

Sometimes this is easy to understand, other times it is more difficult, but in any case every violation should be reported.

As I mentioned in my previous reply to you in another post (the question is different but the environment is exactly the same), depending on the situation, the report can be about the company or local guides, or both when a review is released under pressure, as this is a violation of both the Local Guides program and Google My Business. And the review should be reported first.

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Hi @Cowboy_Z ,

Thanks for reaching out to us!

I see that @ErmesT already jumped in and replied to all of your questions. Thus, I will mark his comment as a solution. We do this for a better visibility in case someone else has a similar doubt. You can learn more about this in this article.

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Hello @Bobiisha Thank you for your reply.

The reason that I put your link in the original post is because I am looking for more information about Google’s purposes and methodologies. I appreciate Ermest’s explanations and will continue to apply his way of sharing the guidelines.

I am looking for additional understanding because 2 aspects of such scenarios give me concern:

1 I am trying to get a sense of the other side of making a report on a business or on a rating by an owner that is a violation. In life I always strive to see things from other people’s points of view and understand how they are affected. Again, let’s say the business owner has a son of the same name who made the rating and who used the services fairly. In my reading of the rules, this IS permitted, so my report would be bringing harm in a misguided way. What does Google do to determine the veracity and relevance of a report? Can I forego the duty to discover if the owner has a son by the same name and trust the Google process to make that determination? I have zero sense of that process and it is affecting my ability to understand how to apply what I read in the rules.

2 If a prior employee is NOT permitted to review a company’s performance in a later legitimate interaction, then i see A LOT of reviews online that are definitely violations. Both of my questions have a similarity in that I am looking at whether there is a gray area or if it is black and white - and then the logistics and reality of how Google handles verifying reports, as many people and businesses are affected by the consequences.

I believe you have additional perspective on these processes and perhaps some helpful views about this area generally. Do you know what happens to a Google Business Acct if such a report, that an owner posted a ranking of their own business, is verified? It looks to be that many accts are left posted online but the owners get locked out, so the reviews that led to the issue remain visable. I am just trying to get a sense of what the rules mean in reality, and the process of accountability.

Ermest is awesome! He does a great job explaining many areas and his writing is Impressive! Still, I am looking for a different angle to help me put on some other light bulbs too! Different people’s writing style causes different illuminations :cowboy_hat_face:

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I know exactly what you are looking for, @Cowboy_Z .

Your question is not a simple question, I can say this is “THE QUESTION” and every Local Guide would love to have “THE ANSWER”. Well, there is an answer, of course, but it is not so easy to explain, because it involves an explanation of what the Google Environment is.

There is not a Black&White and a Grey area. I would like to say that there is an area where a simple binary logic (On/Off - 0/1) can be applied, and an area where a more complex logic is needed.

Example of Binary Logic:

  • The review contain an email address
  • The review contain a website address
  • The review is an identical duplicate of another one

All the mentioned example are violation of the program, easy to detect . Every review containing one of the mentioned example will be automatically flagged and made private. This is, I suppose, what you call “the B&W area”

What about what you call “the grey area”? To understand this, we need to move one step back, and watch the whole Google environment.

First of all, to see the size of the environment, a number: the last official number given by Google is: 150 million Local Guides, and we probably have a large amount of contributors that are not registered to the Local Guides Program. It is physically impossible to have contributions checked manually, even if you put, as my friend @PaulPavlinovich said, the entire population of Australia to work 24/7 for it. Excluding that option, the only one that we have is to put the AI at work. We normally say “an Algorithm” but Artificial Intelligence is a more appropriate term. All the Google environment is a big AI at work, with an exchange of information between programs. An Ai that is learning day by day how to read and understand our contents, including our reviews.

Every time we flag a review as “inappropriate” we give to the AI an extra information, we teach the AI.

We can talk for days about this subject, that I love. I am an influencer of the program that is “feeding the AI”, Google Crowdsource, and we have monthly seminars to better understand how the AI is learning.

You said: “I see A LOT of reviews online that are definitely violations”. Well, why you can say this? Probably because you are able to associate contents, words, sentences and information, and to elaborate them, in a non binary process. This is what artificial intelligence is learning to do, fed by our information, data, reactions.

That’s why our report are so important, because we help the AI to learn and make association, and understand that some content for us is not appropriate. Unfortunately, as I said already, this is not always a binary process, and sometime is just a stack of similar data to guide the reaction of the AI.

I think you have seen that recently we had many reports about missing reviews. I believe this is a step forward in the reaction of the AI. Maybe excessive, but necessary to make a test. Hope this can help you

Of course this is a personal elaboration of a Local Guide that is in Connect from 2017, reading post and interacting with other Local Guides. I don’t have any insight from Google other than my personal observation about how the program improves (do you know that Google Maps can now read and translate a text inside your photos?) and how the AI learn from us

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Very useful and interesting post @ErmesT , I would have guessed you have been a guide for at least 10 years! You have absorbed so much knowledge so quickly.

The brilliance of the Google AI - Artificial Intelligence learning and working of the environment is fascinating in its own right, still it is held in accountability to human wisdom by Google Policy and by Government Law.

Sundar Pichai and the C Level Folks in Mountain View and everywhere they work, and other corporation human agents as assigned, are the representatives of the Google AI existence.

I believe that @Bobiisha will turn up to be appreciative of the technology of the AI learning, but also very connected to the roles people play. Human beings have and are developing the AI existence and also answer for what it does and does not do. This accountability for AI environments is one of the most important subjects we the people of the Earth are navigating at this time…

That is why, thought it may seem boring, I am concerned about whether the business owner has a son, or possibly father of the same name, and whether either may have posted the rating, and done so having used and evaluated company services without prejudice. I have learned about justice and truth that to Assume can mean the end of discovery. We must find out and see the light, and know what must be known and the Google AI must only be counted upon, depended on in proper proportion. If the algorithms do wrong to my fellow citizen and Google user, because I gave a wrong report, I am accountable and no amount of amazing machine intelligence can step in place of merit or demerit that is coming to any one of us. The Universe is a much larger environment and has intelligence that is superior and non-artificial, so Google AI relatively, is a small creation in a small location.

The human being has the potential for wisdom of the nature of the soul (I believe that I am permitted to write these views, and I understand I am near some lines, but I believe this is acceptable as written). Therefore, while binary logic and algorithmic AI feeding are very important and central to all we are undertaking as Local Guides, we still must honor the community FRIENDLINESS policy, and it is good that I am communicating and reaching out to have supportive explanations relevant to my concerns.

Your friend, Ermest may be underestimating the Red Kangaroos that are abundant in Australia! If each of these has a laptop, I think they could service all online summons in person, or in kangaroo!

The numbers that you provide are illuminating. I have read more data also about Google generally. Many people are concerned about the limited customer service. My idea about this is, CONTRIBUTE first and give Google cause and ability to care, and the human connections will emerge. Google offers so many free services that people are then justifiably left to fend with the AI because, as you explain - the logistics are simply such that it must be left to the environment to do what it will…

BUT!!! (and this is one area where I believe Bobiisha will help) the AI is programed to kick many types of inquiries and scenarios over to human counterparts!! This is built in. This allows for a severe diminishment (decrease / lessening) of tasks flowing to the humans, but still that intervention is present and is basic to Google. Pay for something, like a business email service, now Workspace, was G Suite, and you get customer service built in. Here I am contributing to learn to be a great Local Guide and so Google People are emerging from the woodwork to help! Even you Ermest, are not yet fully assimilated into the Google AI and are still very human! (playfully joking :blush: ). @AdamGT @MortenCopenhagen @Cercis

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It is grey kangaroos that are numerous @Cowboy_Z red ones are by comparison rare :).

That said your scenario is still spam. No one related to a business including family members can legitimately rate or review it. The tool used to deliberate in the matter is not relevant. It wouldn’t matter if it was a human, an AI or a spirited a Ouija board - it is a simple violation of the rules and that is all there is to it. @ErmesT and I have a saying, if it smells like spam it probably is spam even if it looks a bit like ham. It’s just not the same. Although I do have to say fried spam and eggs is kind of nice.

Accountabilities of AI is an interesting topic and certainly one that is widely debated. Just out of interest, it actually isn’t the management or owners of a corporation who are responsible for the AI, the corporation itself is. Corporate law means that a company is referred to in most western nations as a “non natural person” - the corporate itself is responsible as a “person”. For some aspects the owners and management of a company can be held to account but as far as I know there have yet to be any test cases to decide in any country if a corporation or its management would be responsible for the actions of an AI. It will be a very interesting case that I will follow when it comes up. Note I say when, not if. Its only a matter of time.

Paul

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Hello @PaulPavlinovich ,

Thank you for your comments on these themes!

Yes, the corporation is responsible. Well said. The directors are the stewards of the business entity’s accountability. What interests me most is not whether directors will be held accountable by law personally, rather how well we can in the law of many nations encourage effective responsibility in leadership positions as AI powers and effects increase in scope.

The clarity you bring to the matter of the rules about family posting is refreshing.

Cowboy Z :cowboy_hat_face:

We are All Related

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It will be an interesting test case when it happens @Cowboy_Z - I don’t know if you’ve looked into AI implementation but there are two main aspects to it - the AI itself (which is usually a programmatic engine, something like Tensor Flow) and its training. A well trained AI can provide a reasonable decision engine given good input and they are quite clever these days. Tesla autopilot for example crashes into things far less than humans do in the same circumstances but it does still crash. Nothing is perfect. A poorly trained AI fits the old computing chestnut, “garbage in garbage out” :).

Paul

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