As far back as 2011, we have been following various threads to the issues with online reviews, and how they not only do a disservice to business and consumers (whether competitor-posted negative reviews, or business self-posting or paying for positive reviews), but in general can cause online reviews in general to lose their value as a meaningful customer resource in the marketplace.
(See our earlier blogs on these topics: Yelp Review Problems: Top 9 Reasons You Can't Always Trust the Review Site, and Uncovering the truth in online customer service satisfaction reports
This week, two huge new bombs were lobbed into the online review battlefield. One exposes the extent of the paid and "incented" positive review industry, and the other outlines how regulators and enforcement are starting to crack down- criminally- on the practice.
The New York Times published an article (In a Race to Out-Rave, 5-Star Web Reviews Go for $5) about the array of for-hire businesses who will write 5-star reviews online for a $4 to $5 fee, while other large businesses who don’t want to meddle in this unsavory practice will blur the line by offering free merchandise or discount offers for customers who post “honest but positive” reviews. The problem is, determining the fake reviews is difficult, but it is enough of a problem to attract a team of Cornell researchers, who recently published a paper about creating a computer algorithm for detecting fake reviewers.
The problem is so pronounced that it seems to have attracted the ire of regulators- in another article on September 22, the NY Times announced the most comprehensive crackdown by regulators to date on deceptive reviews on the Internet- along with agreements with 19 companies to cease their misleading practices and pay a total of $350,000 in penalties.
The article quotes Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general: “What we’ve found is even worse than old-fashioned false advertising,” said. “When you look at a billboard, you can tell it’s a paid advertisement — but on Yelp or Citysearch, you assume you’re reading authentic consumer opinions, making this practice even more deceiving.” The investigation was aimed at companies based in New York, but it will have a wider reach. “This shows that fake reviews are a legitimate target of law enforcement,” said Aaron Schur, senior litigation counsel for Yelp, which has taken an aggressive approach in screening out reviews it believes to be false. Yelp recently sued a California law firm for writing fake reviews of itself.
What does all this have to do with small businesses, including Property Management?
Well, we want customers/clients and tenants to provide honest feedback, and online forums make this easier to do. But, we also want a level playing field where some companies can’t buy better reviews nor tank their competitors with fake negative postings. More importantly, we want online reviews to be trustworthy enough to be meaningful to consumers. In a world where pay-for play, incentives and other arbitrage taints the whole ecosystem, they are just more noise and collateral damage to too many honest and hardworking companies. Thankfully, the problems are becoming more visible, and regulators are starting to reign in the most deceptive of these practices.
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