June 21, 2016: Google Maps is, for millions of people across the world, an indispensable utility used by mobile, desktop, and tablet-based users to plan their travels and orient themselves in the real world. But beyond its navigational utility, it also functions as a quasi-social media network insofar as it incorporates reviews and crowdsources locational edits.
Because spammers have been active in Google Maps, creating phony locations, business entities, and other misleading listings, Google provides controls, including “Report a Problem” and “Suggest an Edit” tools, to make this kind of chicanery more difficult.
But there’s another big vulnerability in Google Maps that — to my knowledge — hasn’t been discussed before: the ease with which users can alter the reviews associated with business listings. These reviews are public, prominent, and important. But they’re not always relevant.
Consider the following two businesses: first, the Clinton Foundation, and second, the Trump Grill. Both businesses have offices in Manhattan, and both are closely associated with the presumptive presidential candidates of the major U.S. political parties.
Let’s look first at current set of reviews associated with the Clinton Foundation Maps location:
It’s doubtful – at least in my mind – that any of these “reviews” came from people who had any actual business dealings with the foundation. They’re political graffiti – which has a place in our world, of course, but that place might not be here.
To be fair, let’s now navigate over to the reviews area for the Trump Grill, at 725 5th Avenue:
Again, while it’s possible that some of the 53 reviewers actually visited this restaurant, it’s far more likely that these folks are using the reviews channel for political graffiti.
What Google can do about this
Google – like Facebook – has to walk an extremely fine line between maintaining an orderly, useful, environment and the rights of people to express themselves freely on these platforms. There’s nothing legally actionable about any of the “reviews” posted to either the Clinton or Trump organizations, but there’s nothing useful or relevant about them either.
Google could – if it wanted to – review the reviews and decide which ones are actually relevant, but this is a business that Google doesn’t want to be in. What Google could do – and probably has the means right now to do – is to insist that reviews will only be posted to Maps if Google, via the locational GPS feature built into each Android phone, can verify that the reviewer was actually in the restaurant or business entity or had (in the case of the Clinton foundation), actually communicated with this entity via voice, text, e-mail or via physical visit.
Of course, doing this would create a whole set of different problems, including:
- What if the person did visit the restaurant but insisted on writing a review that had nothing to do with the food?
- What if the person visited the restaurant before Google’s location-based review verification system came into effect?
Furthermore, doing something like this would reinforce and expand the idea in the popular mind that Google (or someone) is always tracking, always watching, and increasingly imposing hurdles to the free expression of ideas which the internet has always been known for. The result would be likely be a vastly reduced volume of reviews posted to Maps, reducing its utility to users.
Naturally, most businesses won’t suffer the level of review-based political graffiti on their Maps listings that both Clinton and Trump are facing now, because most businesses don’t have their executives running for office. But there are many classes of businesses operating in politically sensitive areas today, including big banks, energy companies, public entities, and even some consumer brands, whose reviews areas show the same pattern: opinions posted that have nothing to do with the actual business experiences of customers.
For these businesses, the problem of Maps-based political graffiti will continue – for the foreseeable future – to represent both an opportunity for political graffitists, and a reputational-navigational issue.
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