cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50778217
🗺️ While visiting Pride Berlin, I learned how utterly pointless Google Maps Reviews in Germany are.
⭐ Any place can simply report negative reviews for defamation or claim the person was never there and have it removed.
Users can then appeal & risk a lawsuit.
When a review is removed the removed count on Google Maps goes up (🖼️ 1)
However that count is reset after 365 days and also only goes to 250! (🖼️ 2)
Therefore companies can simply mass report negative reviews to improve their rating.
https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/16997273
So many vulnerable people are relying on Google Maps reviews & ratings to tell them where it is save to go.
Some places have only 1000-2000 reviews but >250 reviews removed in the past 365 days!
Like how bad must the situation there be?!
Absolute shame.
I don’t only blame google, I also blame the German laws around this
Is the 250 limit a German law?
If not, they could just give the exact number and let you calculate a new mean considering they all had 1/5
probably not, seems like they try to make it easier for the companies
Yeah, of all the things to criticise Google for actually following local laws isn’t really high on my list
are they following local law or are they making it as easy on themselves as possible, at the cost of users once again?