Google Sues Business Over Alleged Fake Business Profiles & Reviews

Google had filed a lawsuit against a company that allegedly created fake Google Business Profiles and tons of fake reviews. Google said it filed the suit “to help put an end to these types of malicious schemes.”

This company allegedly created 350 fraudulent Business Profiles and over 14,000 fake reviews to try to manipulate the Google local search results.

The court filing says the suit is against “Ethan QiQi Hu; GMBEye; Rafadigital, LLC (“Rafadigital”); and Does 1–
20 to stop Defendants’ complex and misleading scheme to deceive consumers, business owners, and Google by unlawfully manipulating Google’s industry-leading business listing services.”

Google added, “It then attempted to sell information about consumers who had been lured in through such false claims. While we detected and removed this deceptive content, we’re taking proactive legal action to stop this bad actor from scamming other platforms and to protect our users.”

I don’t see how much the lawsuit is for, but the court documents have some pretty cool details on this, including a number of screenshots. So check out that PDF.

Forum discussion Twitter.