Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

TripAdvisor Fined In Italy For Fake Reviews

Posted by Soulskill on from the italy:-1-star,-didn't-elect-me-king dept.

mpicpp writes with news that TripAdvisor, a travel website filled with user-generated reviews, has been hit with a €500,000 ($611,000) fine for "misleading customers" by failing to cull fake reviews from their list. "The regulator complained that people reading TripAdvisor Italy were unable to distinguish between genuine and fake reviews posted on the site. It said both were presented by TripAdvisor as 'authentic and genuine in nature.' Demanding payment of the fine within 30 days, the ICA also accused the travel company of failing to provide proper checks to weed out bogus postings."

6 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. According to Italy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Apparently, yes. Of course, the word is that Italy's court system is a total crock overall, but I have no personal experience to confirm or deny that.
    In the absence of that, making companies liable for "failing to weed out" fake reviews essentially means no more reviews, period. I think I'd rather be able to decide for myself based on the content of the reviews whether I believe them or not, as long as the site isn't actively encouraging fakes and will at least look over and possibly do some minimal investigation into complaints of "fake" reviews when reported.

  2. Devil's Advocate says... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The regulator complained that people reading TripAdvisor Italy were unable to distinguish between genuine and fake reviews posted on the site.

    So how is TripAdvisor supposed to do it?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Devil's Advocate says... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The regulator complained that people reading TripAdvisor Italy were unable to distinguish between genuine and fake reviews posted on the site.

      So how is TripAdvisor supposed to do it?

      With a disclaimer that they take no responsibility for user generated content rather than claiming its genuine. Either that or get the content up to the promised accuracy (that seems impossible though).

    2. Re:Devil's Advocate says... by SeaFox · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Either that or get the content up to the promised accuracy (that seems impossible though).

      No it's not. It's called "secret shopper", a.k.a -- the company pays for their own content by hiring a reviewer who does not tell the establishment he is there to professionally review them and instead poses as a regular customer so he gets no special treatment.

      But in an ever repeating cycle, companies today want to crowdsource (get for free) the content that drives people to visit them. Low investment = low quality. Much like news outlets' quality goes down as they start using user submissions, tips and rumors from social networking, and amateur visuals because they dont' want to pay for professional journalists and cameramen.

  3. Re:WTH iIs the Italian Competition Authority by fph+il+quozientatore · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Because said companies fradulently claim these reviews are legitimate." *citation needed.

    They were not fined because they had fake reviews in the first place; they were fined for fraudolent advertising, because their billboards were like "I haz one bazillion reviews!! And they are totally genuine and authentic from real people!!1!"

    --
    My first program:

    Hell Segmentation fault

  4. Re:WTH iIs the Italian Competition Authority by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You mean TFA? Yeah it mentions an alleged claim by ICA that TripAdvisor supposedly does this, but that's essentially hearsay with no detail at all. Most any reasonable (non Italian?) person would automatically assume that user generated content is generally shown as submitted and know that anyone can submit one, so unless the site actually says something to the effect of "We affirm and verify that all posted reviews are submitted by real customers representing their true experiences" then I call B.S. I still want to know why there's even an Italian Competition Authority in the first place, what it is, and why it should have any "authority" at all. I guess it's a quasi-government entity of some sort? Seems kind of like their equivalent of the US FTC, but more anal and xenophobic.