fraud – The Map Room

Can Places on Google Maps Be Trusted?

Jonathan Crowe — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 18:18:31 +0000

Google has been plagued with fraudulent and scammy business listings on Google Maps for years (1, 2). Last April, Google posted about the steps it takes to combat fake content. James Killick points to more recent incidents and wonders whether places on Google Maps can still be trusted; given that he was able to add a fake listing and have it appear on the map within hours, signs point to no.

How Google Deals with Fake Content on Google Maps

Jonathan Crowe — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 13:25:57 +0000

In a blog post last Friday, Google offers some detail on how it combats fraudulent user-submitted content on Google Maps. These include fake business profiles, fake reviews, contributed photos with fake phone numbers—it’s basically about business listings. (There was a time, of course, when fake user-submitted content was to the map itself.) They report something like 115 million reviews, 200 million photos and 20 million fake business profiles—no wonder they’re using machine learning to deal with it all. (Compare with Google’s February 2021 post on the same subject: the numbers are up.)

Previously: Millions of Business Listings on Google Maps Are Fake: WSJ; How Many Fake Business Listings Are There on Google Maps?

Millions of Business Listings on Google Maps Are Fake: WSJ

Jonathan Crowe — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 23:51:41 +0000

The Wall Street Journal goes in-depth on a problem Google Maps has had for years: fake and deceptive business listings posted by scam artists that crowd out legitimate local businesses—as many as 11 million such listings at any given moment, according to experts.

Online advertising specialists identified by Google as deft fraud fighters estimated that Google Maps carries roughly 11 million falsely listed businesses on any given day, according to a Journal survey of these experts.

They say a majority of the listings for contractors, electricians, towing and car repair services, movers and lawyers, among other business categories, aren’t located at their pushpins on Google Maps. Shams among these service categories, called “duress verticals” inside Google, can snag people at their most vulnerable.

Those experts and Google disagree as to the extent of the problem. (Which is exacerbated by how easy it is to set up a business listing.) And the scam artists aren’t simply displacing local businesses: they’re resorting to outright extortion: pay up, or we’ll swamp you with bogus listings. [Engadget, The Verge]

How Many Fake Business Listings Are There on Google Maps?

Jonathan Crowe — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 19:08:25 +0000

Bogus business listings on Google Maps have been a thing for a while; a new research paper, authored by researchers at Google and the University of San Diego, tries to quantify the scale and scope of the problem. The New Scientist reports:

To analyse the scope of this abuse, the group looked at over 100,000 listings that the Google Maps team had identified as abusive between June 2014 and September 2015. The fraudulent listings most often belonged to services like locksmiths, plumbers and electricians.

Overall, less than one per cent of Google Maps listings were fraudulent, but pockets of fake listings emerged. In West Harrison, New York, for example, more than 80 per cent of locksmiths listed were scams. The U.S. was home to over half of the fraudulent listings, followed by India with 17.5 per cent.

[Cartophilia]