Slashdot Mirror

An Italian man was sentenced to nine months in jail for selling fake reviews on TripAdvisor to several hundred businesses. He'll also be fined 8,000 euros (about $9,300).

TripAdvisor had threatened businesses with a red badge icon warning travelers thatreviews had been manipulated, after which "several businesses were willing to share information to support TripAdvisor's investigations." From TripAdvisor's Insights blog:
Back in 2015, our dedicated team of fraud investigators identified a new illegal business in Italy called PromoSalento that was offering to write fake reviews for hospitality businesses... PromoSalento attempted to avoid our scrutiny by regularly changing their usernames and email addresses, but our fraud detection processes use a suite of advanced technologies to evaluate hundreds of review attributes such as IP addresses, browser types and even the screen resolution of a reviewer's device. Based on that analysis, we were able to see a trail of digital and behavioral 'breadcrumbs' that led our team straight back to PromoSalento....

Writing fake reviews on TripAdvisor has always been a violation of the law in many jurisdictions, for instance falling under the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, as well as national laws relating to consumer protection, fraud and false advertising. However, this is the first time we have seen the laws being enforced to the point of securing a criminal conviction.
"As many as 16 percent of online reviews are fake, according to research by the European Parliament," reports CBS News. Yet they add that when it comes to accountability and consumer safety, many Americans believe online reviews are more effective than government oversight.