Google Maps' big action: 10,000 listings blocked, were getting 5-star reviews written by AI

Google Maps made significant steps against the businesses that were having fake reviews made. Google has made it abundantly clear that fake business listings and fake reviews will no longer be tolerated. Google has made it known in a recently published blog post that it is now keeping a closer eye on the verification of business listings on Google Maps using AI and specially trained moderators. Till now, the company removed over 10,000 fraudulent listings and legal proceedings have also been taken in numerous cases.

Google said that they have created a new system with the help of their Gemini AI model, which identifies suspicious profile edits. For example, if a business changes its name from "Zoe's Coffee House" to "Zoe's Cafe", it will be considered normal, but if the same business suddenly changes from "Cafe" to "Plumber", it will be considered suspicious and Google will investigate it. Thousands of suspicious profile edits have been blocked so far this year.

Google also said that it is now cracking down on fake 5-star reviews, which are purchased with the aim of deceiving the customer and manipulating ratings. Many businesses buy false reviews from people who have never even visited that establishment. Google's policy strictly prohibits such activities.

Now with the help of AI, such patterns will be identified and action will be taken if any discrepancy is found even months after the review is posted. A new feature has been introduced in India, the US, and the UK in which users will be notified when a suspicious 5-star review is removed.

More than 240 million reviews were blocked or removed by Google last year, which were violating their policy. Most of these reviews were caught by the system as soon as they were posted and removed before they were even seen. Apart from this, more than 1.2 crore fake business profiles were also removed.

The purpose of this entire exercise is to ensure that every business profile visible on Google Maps is real and users avoid false information or fraud. Now through AI and machine learning, immediate action can be taken without any delay, making Google Maps more reliable.