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Re:UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews by ghoward on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @03:50PM (#26404026)
We are sort of communicating. I _am_ the OP. And I only meant it as "I don't trust Google."

I'll let you decide if that implication is unsubstantiated or not.

Re:UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews by asdfasgasdgasdg on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @03:53PM (#26404072)
You should just say that, then. If I don't trust someone, that doesn't mean it's OK to go around and imply that they do some absurd malicious thing I have absolutely no evidence they actually do. It's fine not to trust them. Spreading unsubstantiated rumors and implications is not fine.
Re:UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews by pbhjpbhj on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @06:17PM (#26405770)
You go out each day and pigeons have shat (pooped) on your car.

Today you go out and there's a pigeon sitting on the branch over your car, you scare it away.

Your friend is like "what did you do that for, you have no evidence this pigeon poops on cars!".

Your [asdfasgasdgasdg] position is "this pigeon might be fine" the OP's position appears to be [or at least, mine is] "pigeons are probably going to poop on my car". You're saying his position is insubstantiated ...

It's the difference between treating Google as unique, and treating them as a member of a class of businesses. It's not insubstantiated, it's just a different form of substantiation. If all advertising businesses the OP has dealt with before were underhanded then your position looks to them like "today is unique, maybe the sun won't rise".

tl;dr you can substantiate a position based on general behaviours of items in a class, it's not necessarily wrong, and can be just a different model.

Re:UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews by asdfasgasdgasdg on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @06:40PM (#26405964)
But there are no popular review websites that allow business owners to pay to remove negative reviews. So the inductive approach you advocate favors my position.
Re:UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews by mewpmewp2 on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @04:26PM (#26404496)
I just wanted to mention that I adore the way you articulated and called out everything that was going on here.